Schadenfreude
by Scribbler
Summary: A new enemy attacks Yuugi and Anzu, leaving Anzu hospitalised, maybe dying, and everyone in danger. They must defeat it to survive but how do you fight a monster that literally feeds on misery and despair when you're worried one of your friends will die?
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **Standard one – not mine and never were.

**A/N: **This started out as a daydream while I was invigilating an exam back in April, and kind of spiralled from there. I always wanted to write a fic like this, but I never actually finished one before. Hopefully people will enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Feedback welcomed and always appreciated.

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_**Schadenfreude **_

© Scribbler, June 2007

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**Prologue**

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_****_

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_**Six Years Ago:**_

The rain stopped just before school got out, so there were still plenty of puddles when kids streamed through the gate wearing brand new Wellington boots and smiles.

Still, despite the rain, Domino showed no sign of relief from the heat. The hydrocarbon level was high enough to etch glass, and the brand new highway on the edge of town hummed with road rage. Air conditioners were failing after weeks of humidity, dogs lay panting on the sidewalk, laundry mildewed in hampers after half an hour, and sinuses felt filled with cement. If the barometric pressure dropped any lower the whole town's guts would be sucked through the soles of their feet into the bowels of the Earth.

Yuugi dragged a wrist across his forehead. His shirt-back was soaked, and his hair drooped like an unwatered plant. "Are you coming over again today?" He couldn't quite keep the eagerness from his voice.

Anzu, recently minted best friend, looked at the rolling clouds and bit her lip. "Maybe I should go home today."

"Oh."

"I only mean, y'know, because I've gone to your house every day this week and my Mom's starting to forget who I am."

"It's all right," Yuugi was hasty to assure her. "I understand. It's just that Grandpa bought, like, twenty bags of potato chips and dip, and they had a sale on Hello Panda cookies so he got so many they don't even all fit in the cupboard, and I know how much you like them and everything, but -"

"Yuugi, stop." Anzu held up a hand and stopped herself, right there in the middle of the stinking hot sidewalk.

Their friendship was still new, and neither was sure how to handle it, or each other. Anzu had, until very recently, been one of the popular kids, while Yuugi had been relegated to the periphery of all things. It was still amazing to everyone that they'd become friends – _especially_ Anzu.

She couldn't explain what it was about the geeky Yuugi Mutou that made her want to hang out with him. He wasn't cool, or even especially useful. All he did was play games, and not even trendy games like basketball or soccer. She was the first person he'd showed his collection to – all the board games, card games, computer games and the things he did with his spare time because no other kid would be seen dead with him.

Yet here she was, walking home with him again, in full view of Mikata Teki and her cronies. Did she have a death wish or what?

It scared her a bit, what this friendship meant to Yuugi. She wasn't sure it meant the same to her, or ever would. Anzu wasn't a cruel girl, though she could be selfish, and didn't want to see the little guy hurt because he'd invested too much in what could be a very temporary situation.

Her parents' marriage could be a very temporary situation, too.

She wondered if things would be different if Yuugi's house not been such a great place of refuge from arguments and slammed doors. Yuugi didn't demand to know gory details when she showed up on his doorstep, the way Mikata would've. And he hadn't even _mentioned_ the Gameboy she broke. Mikata would still be demanding penance. Plus his grandfather was nice, the kind of jolly old man Anzu imagined her own grandfather would've been, had one not died when she was just a baby, and the other not lived far away in America.

Yuugi looked at her with eyes like a china doll.

Anzu turned her face away, embarrassed. "I really can't, Yuugi," she said, even though she could've. Mom was visiting her friends in Rubik City, and Daddy wouldn't be home until tonight. It would just be Anzu, the TV and a box of dry cereal until one of them came home.

Yet the thought of stepping into _Yuugi's_ house, of sitting in front of _Yuugi's _TV, eating _Yuugi's _food and (heaven help her) _enjoying_ herself filled her with mind-gibbering terror.

She couldn't afford to get attached to a kid like Yuugi. Her social life wouldn't be worth living.

So it surprised her when he hiked his backpack higher on his shoulder and shrugged like it didn't matter to him whether she went home or not. "No biggie."

Anzu looked up, confused. "What?"

"If you change your mind, you can come over whenever." The pleading note was not lost on her, but she appreciated him not trying to force the issue – or her.

Yuugi Mutou was deceptively simple to understand.

She squinted at him. "Yuugi, why do you like me?"

"What?"

"You heard."

He frowned. "Because you're nice. And you didn't make fun when you saw my collection."

"But you didn't know that when you first made friends with me. I was evil to you, but you've never been anything but nice to me. Why?" In Anzu's experience, people were never nice in the face of difficulty unless there was something in it for them – reflected glory, massaged ego, financial security … Yuugi didn't fit into any of those. He was a mystery to her – an enigma with outsized eyes and bizarre hair.

Yuugi still looked confused. "You weren't evil."

"Yes I was."

"I never noticed."

She boggled. "You're not serious."

"I don't understand what you mean. I'm your friend. Friends are supposed to like each other, otherwise why would they be friends in the first place?"

A valid point, but not an answer.

"I like you. You're different than those other girls you hand out with. None of them would ever pick up my bag or chase off bullies for me."

Anzu blushed. "Yeah, well …"

Yuugi hiked his backpack again and turned in the direction of his house. "So … you're sure you won't come over?"

Anzu looked at him, at his rumpled shirt, scuffed sneakers and pleading expression. He looked so needy and pathetic, and yet … somehow endearing, like the last puppy left in a cardboard box next to a 'free to a good home' sign.

"I'm sure. My Mom…" She shrugged.

"Well, if you need a place to go later, don't think you need to call first."

She wasn't supposed to walk the streets alone after dark, but she'd done it before, snotty-nosed and blinded by tears. The tissue Grandpa Mutou gave her was still crumpled in the bottom of her schoolbag where she'd left it after he drove her home.

Anzu knew she could run to Yuugi in a crisis.

It was a frightening thought, and too much for a ten year old to comprehend.

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

"Seriously, Anzu. My door will always be open to you."

She looked sidelong at him. "Seriously?"

"Well, yeah. Of course."

Mikata once said something like that, and look how well _that _turned out. One falling-out over who Anzu was allowed to be friends with and their whole 'friendship' went kablooie. The hurt from that was still fresh enough to burn.

"Okay. Pinkie swear it."

"What?" Yuugi looked confused.

Anzu held up her right hand, all fingers curled into a fist except the smallest. "Pinkie swear, or it doesn't mean anything."

He looked at her, then at her hand, and then nearly fell over in his haste to grip her little finger with his own. His hand was clammy, but so was hers, so their fingers slipped and slid as Anzu began bouncing them up and down.

"What're you doing?"

"Pinkie swearing. Don't you know how to do it right?"

"I've … never pinkie sworn on anything before."

Man, he _was_ an unpopular little nerd.

Anzu sighed and said slowly, bouncing their hands in a distinct rhythm, "Swear forever, swear forever, never break it, no, not ever – we agree. Okay. Now you make your promise, and if you break it…"

Yuugi solemnly repeated the words. "I swear that my door will always be open for you."

"Then it's official. And in return, I promise never to let anyone beat up on you or break your stuff."

"Really?"

"Sure."

"Hey, thanks! Wow, my very first pinkie swear."

"Uh, you can let go of my hand now."

He flushed crimson. "Whoops. Sorry."

Anzu nodded, and didn't even wipe her hand on her skirt. Then she cut her eyes at Yuugi again and said sincerely, "I'll remember this, Yuugi."

His grin could've powered air-conditioning enough to cool the whole of Domino. "Me too."

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_The hydrocarbon level was high enough to etch glass … the whole town's guts would be sucked through the soles of their feet into the bowels of the Earth. _

-- Boosted from _Four to Score_ by Janet Evanovich.

"… _T__hey had a sale on Hello Panda cookies so he got so many they don't even all fit in the cupboard…__" _

_--_Hello Panda is a popular brand of Japanese biscuits (cookies), manufactured by Meiji Seika. Each biscuit consists of a small hollow shortbread layer, filled with vanilla, strawberry, peanut butter or chocolate filling.

_Mom was visiting her friends in Rubik City._

-- A reference to Rubik's Cube. I figured that since Domino is one type of game, the cities and towns surrounding it might be similarly named.

"_Swear forever, swear forever, never break it, no, not ever – we agree."_

-- This version of pinkie-swearing comes from the sub version of _Monster Rancher_, although there is another rhyme of which I'm aware. That one goes: "Make friends, make friends, never ever break friends."

* * *


	2. This Could Be My Last Day

* * *

**1. This Could Be My Last Day**

* * *

**Everything is fragile  
Everything is broken  
You were full of living colours  
And such a sense of wonder  
Prophecy is written  
Prophecy is spoken  
I wish I could have saved you  
But I saw you going under  
I wish I could have saved you  
But I think I'm going under  
This could be my last day**

_-- _From_ This Could Be My Last Day _by Duke Special.

* * *

The dream was horribly clear, but clear in that way that lets you know you're in a dream. Yuugi felt like he was watching things from one step behind himself, lurking somewhere in his hairline.

He was used to feeling not quite in control when Yami piloted his body, but this was different. Now he couldn't feel the comforting warmth of Yami's soul next to his own. It wasn't _gone_;ithadn't been ripped away, it simply … wasn't there.

"Yuugi?"

He turned. Man, that felt bizarre, like turning around twice but only seeing one thing. His brain was an in-car CD-player repeating part of a track when the wheels caught a speed bump. He struggled to focus.

"Yuugi?"

It was Anzu. She stood in front of him, one loose fist raised to her mouth. She looked worried.

"Anzu?" Funny; saying her name like that, like she'd come to collect him for school a few minutes too early, when all around him stretched blackness that didn't _feel_ like anything. It felt like the weirdest thing he'd ever done.

Weirder still, he was actually kind of surprised about that. Shouldn't he be demanding to know where Yami was? The last time he had a really weird dream he pulled a sword from a dragon's neck and … well, everyone knew how well that ended.

Anzu shook her head. "Yuugi, I'm sorry."

"Huh?" Oh yeah, real witty. Even in his dreams he was too tongue-tied around her to say anything worth much. Duel Monsters and friendship and saving the world – easy topics compared to when it was just him and Anzu and they forgot they'd seen each other snotty-nosed and bloody-kneed.

"I'm so sorry." Without warning she flew at him. "This is going to hurt."

Yuugi though she was going to bop him on the head like was always doing to Honda and Jounouchi. He flinched, until her arms closed around his neck and he realised it was actually a hug. Yet there wasn't time to appreciate a hug from Dream-Anzu like there usually was, because Dream-Anzu wasn't acting her usual self. There was no skimpy bikini, no rose petals, and no candlelit hamburgers – just a viciously tight hug and … a wet neck?

"Are you crying?" he asked.

"I'm so, so sorry." Her voice was all broken and choked with tears. Then she broke the hug, leaped to her feet and fled into the dark.

Yuugi stood blinking for a moment. "Don't I at least get a back rub?" There was _always_ a back rub.

A scream bullwhipped out of the dark.

"Anzu?" Even half-removed from himself Yuugi felt dread cut into him, like tiny feet in pointed shoes dancing in his stomach. He started to run. "Anzu!"

She screamed again.

Then he saw her, materialising in the darkness like a lone candle in an underground corridor – dark as a passageway in an ancient Egyptian tomb. She had her arms over her head and looked terrified.

"Stay back, Yuugi!" She sounded terrified, too, but she used her bossy voice through it. You couldn't defy Anzu's bossy voice. It was against the laws of nature and sanity.

Yuugi hovered, not sure what to do. Why was screaming? What was she protecting herself from? He couldn't see anything. Desire to run to her was hindered by confusion.

"I'm sorry, Yuugi. I really am. This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me."

"What? I don't understand."

The darkness rose up like a giant smoky fist. It covered Anzu so fast Yuugi was still hovering when she vanished. He opened his mouth. He ran forward.

A crunch.

A spray.

A thick splatter of blood appeared at his feet.

Yuugi stopped running, too horrified to move. It was only a dream, but he stared at the blood.

And it _was_ blood; he knew that. It wasn't red paint, or coloured water, or spilled nail polish. Anzu once spilled a bottle of Cherry Chalice polish on her living room carpet, and Yuugi had helped clean it up before her mom got home. They'd been thirteen at the time, him creating a game out of cleaning, her rounded in funny places and being girly where she never had before.

There'd been a pink stain when they were done, so they dragged the armchair over and both squeezed onto it so Mrs. Mazaki couldn't move it back. It was a stupid solution, doomed to failure once he went home, but they'd never been big on common sense. They thought they could make miracles out of mulch.

No, this wasn't nail polish. This was different. The darkness was everywhere, so it looked like it had landed on nothing at all; it was just hanging there, disconnected from time and space. It wasn't real – couldn't be real.

And yet …

And yet Anzu was gone, and Yuugi knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, better than he knew the inside of his own head, that this red spray was all that was left of her. Panic engulfed him.

"**ANZU!" **

"_Aibou!"_

Yami's voice snapped Yuugi back into consciousness. He sat up in bed, breathing hard. His chest hurt. So did his throat. He felt like he'd been screaming for real.

Maybe he had.

Yami bent over him, the dresser just visible through his shoulder. He looked concerned. _"Aibou? Were you having a nightmare?"_

"Did I make a noise?" Yuugi asked blearily.

"_Not out loud, but you were very distressed. What's the matter?"_ He reached out as though to soothe Yuugi's brow, but they both knew it was only a gesture. He couldn't actually _touch_ Yuugi, just pretend and by symbolic.

Yuugi stared at him, refocusing his mind. Usually having Yami nearby was a comfort. Yami was strong in the ways that counted, and always looked at Yuugi with eyes that seemed like he knew exactly what to do in a crisis, even when he didn't.

Yet after that horrible dream they were the wrong kind of eyes for Yuugi to be looking into. It was completely stupid, but suddenly all he wanted was call Anzu to make sure she was okay.

"What time is it?"

Yami glanced at the clock with only a slight sneer. Anything technological unrelated to duelling cut little ice with him. He'd only just mastered the microwave, owing to Jounouchi getting him hooked on toffee popcorn during the European Duel Monsters Finals – not that Yami would ever admit to being _hooked_ on anything except duelling. _"Four fifteen."_

Oh. Too early to call _anyone_.

Yuugi scrubbed his eyes. He could still hear Dream-Anzu's scream. It'd been so real. The scream actually felt like something tangible – something he'd like to peel off his skin and dump in the waste paper basket like the face masks she once made all the gang try.

"Yeah, I had a nightmare. I'm going to get a drink of water."

Yami watched him rise. He had the most expressive eyes Yuugi had ever known, though other people would disagree. He supposed sharing brainspace made you extra receptive to other people's expressions.

"I'm fine, Yami. Just a little wigged out."

"_Wigged … out?"_

"Bothered. On edge. Frazzled."

"_Ah." _Yami nodded._ "You've been labouring too hard over your lessons. That … home-work your tutors give you," _he said the word like Jounouchi might say 'dog crap',_ "is too much. It has made you unwell."_

"Hardly. I've barely touched my English translation, and my geography project's due in on Friday. I haven't even started it yet. Anzu's been working on hers for the past month. She showed it to me this morning – it's twenty-five pages long and she's not finished yet."

Anzu. Connecting her to reality with something so mundane helped. Anzu the diligent student was not Dream-Anzu. Yuugi visualised her poring over her books, chewing on her pen, not the shadowy hand and red splatter of his nightmare. It helped.

"_You work too hard."_

"On the wrong things."

That wasn't a pout. The King of Games did notpout. Ever. _"Your deck needed organising."_

The exchange pulled a small smile to Yuugi's lips, but his throat was still sore. He forwent a dressing gown and padded barefoot to the kitchen. Yami followed, as was his habit.

There was a glass leftover from supper on the sideboard. They argued in whispers about the pros and cons of duelling versus schoolwork. Eventually Yuugi washed out his glass and upended it on the draining board because he couldn't reach the cupboard without a box, and all the boxes were locked in the storeroom.

He thought they'd been quiet, but as they climbed the stairs past Grandpa's room a crotchety voice called out. "Get to bed, Yuugi. It's bumblebutt in the morning and you have school."

"Sorry, Grandpa. I was just getting a drink."

"You'd better not wet the bed."

"Grandpa! I haven't done that since I was five years old!"

Grandpa Mutou grunted and said nothing more. He was irritable when he was tired, so Yuugi tiptoed back to his own room and burrowed under the covers. They were still warm, but he lay awake, unwilling to doze off in case he dreamed again. The peace of the night was spoiled, so when his alarm went off a few hours later he felt like he hadn't slept at all.

"You look terrible," Grandpa said across the breakfast table. He didn't look too hot himself, but then again he hadn't _ever_ been a morning person. He nursed viscous black coffee while another, even stronger pot percolated.

The house would smell of coffee for the rest of the day, but that was okay. Yuugi liked that his Grandpa smelled of coffee grinds and cookies, rather than that weird mothballs-and-whiskey whiff he'd smelled around other old men who'd lost their wives. He mainly found those men at bus stops and in post office queues, and their yellowed teeth and uncombed hair gravitated to him like moths to a flame. Sugoroku Mutou was eccentric, but at least he hadn't let himself go.

"Mmf." Yuugi stuffed nattō into his mouth. He barely tasted it, and wished they had some sour plums to wake up his palette.

However, the grocery run had once again been neglected, with only Sugoroku's precious Extra-Java and bare essentials lining their cupboards until someone went to the store. Even this was the last of the dried nattō. That someone would probably be Yuugi after school.

He sighed, resigned to the task. "I'm gonna need some money, Grandpa."

"What? Why?"

"We're out of … pretty much everything. I figured I'd call in at the supermarket on the way home from school today."

"Ah, right, right. I hadn't noticed." Sugoroku nodded and absently patted the pockets of his dressing gown, as if he expected to find yesterday's takings there. He went to the breadbin where he kept a wad of notes and peeled off enough to cover food for the week. "You're a good boy, Yuugi. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Yuugi stowed the money in the side pocket of his backpack, next to his keys on their Kuriboh keychain.

The tacky little thing was one of the gifts Shizuka got them when she went back to Tokyo. Jounouchi had a tiny Baby Dragon, Honda a motorbike on a plastic string, and even Otogi held out his hands for the little pink fuzzy dice she'd bought. Anzu had squealed at her gift – a keychain from which a miniature Black Magician Girl dangled. It was so small the features were blurred and smushed together so that she looked more like a blank mannequin than the Duel Monsters card, but Anzu had seemed extra pleased at this.

"She could be anyone I want her to be. Oh, Shizuka, I love it!"

"Girls," Jounouchi had said, shaking his head, and Yuugi was inclined to agree. He didn't understand girls and wasn't sure he ever would – especially more than one girl at a time. Individually he could kind of figure them out, or at least nod and smile in the right places and not look at their chests too much. Girls who travelled in packs were a mystery akin to the Rubik's Cube before he solved it in grade school. And he hadn't even peeled off the stickers, either. That was a cinch compared to girl-talk and giggles.

"Is Anzu calling for you this morning?" Sugoroku asked.

Yuugi nodded through his mouthful. It was he only thing that had stopped him snatching up the phone. Well, that and the growing sense of ridiculousness at his overreaction. Everyone had nightmares; it was nothing to get so freaked about. He hadn't tried to call Jounouchi last week when he dreamt they were both drowning in custard, or Ryou after that dream about vacationing in the Bermuda Triangle with Gackt. By the time he was ready to leave, Yuugi had convinced himself his nightmare was the product of too much dorayaki before bedtime, and he stepped out of the store feeling better.

However, he couldn't deny he felt better when he saw Anzu's frantic wave. She was still halfway down the street, but ran to the Game Shop with a big grin.

"Hey, Yuugi."

"Hi, Anzu. You look happy."

"I am. I had the most amazing dream last night."

Yuugi's heart sank, but only a little. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I dreamt I was practising my dancing on the way to school, and some big producer drove by in his car and talent-spotted me, right on the pavement. He whisked me off to Hollywood and I became a big star in all these musical movies. I had my name in lights, a limousine, an entourage, and … ooh, everything. It was major league cool."

"It sounds it."

She cocked her head to one side, smile fading slightly. "Are you okay? You look terrible."

"That's a kind thing to say."

"You know what I mean." She stuck out her tongue and did a little twirl, as though the producer from her dream might be driving by. "Didn't you sleep well?"

Yuugi decided not to tell her about his nightmare, since it was stupid anyway and might make her laugh at him. What might she think of him if he was subconsciously getting hugs and then killing her off?

He shrugged off her question like a duck would rainwater. "I guess I'm a little worried about our geography projects."

"You mean you still haven't started yours? Yuugi!"

"I know, I know, but it's just so difficult! And boring. I try to start it, but every time I end up doing something more interesting. Like pairing my socks. Or vacuuming the shelves in the spare room."

Anzu frowned. "You're getting as bad as Jounouchi and Honda. They're a bad influence on you."

"Don't be mean. I was never a good student like you."

"Maybe," she conceded. "But you've gotten a lot worse since those two became your study buddies. Honestly, all they know how to study are Duel Monsters, motorcycles and the girls' netball team."

Anzu didn't hold the netball team in much regard. Domino High didn't allow cheerleaders, so all the bubble-heads had instead migrated onto the school newspaper and some of the sports teams. The netballers were an especially fluffy bunch who coasted on their short skirts and popularity. Yuugi thought he remembered Anzu trying out for them once and failing to make the cut, but that had to be wrong, because she was always the loudest anti-netballer and strongest campaigner for abolishing all-girl and all-boy teams.

"They're not that bad."

"Are you kidding?"

"They're your friends too."

"Yeah, but I don't study with them. Jounouchi practically lives in detention."

"That's not a good argument."

"No, but his horrible grades are. They compete to see who comes last in every class. Look, Yuugi, if geography is really bothering you, I'll come over to help sometime this week. We can spend an evening blitzing your project so you don't have to worry about it anymore."

The prospect of Anzu coming over was an appealing one, even if it was just for schoolwork. Outside the brief journey to school, they rarely spent time as just the two of them anymore. It was almost enough to make Yuugi mourn his days of them as bestest-best-friends, before high school and the Millennium Puzzle changed their lives. Almost.

And speaking of brief journeys … Domino High loomed over them like some vengeful god of education waiting for human sacrifices.

"This is where we part ways," Anzu announced, darting through the gates. "I got really stuck on part of that English homework, and I wanted to talk to Mr. Ishida before class."

Yuugi boggled. "That translation homework was due for today?"

"This afternoon, yes." Anzu paused and narrowed her eyes at him. "You mean you haven't done that _either_?"

"Oh man." Yuugi ran both hands through his hair – not that it made much difference. "I am _so_ dead. Mr. Ishida hasn't accepted an excuse about late homework in forty years. He's always telling us that. Now he's going to skin me alive for forgetting the deadline. Oh man…"

Anzu sighed and rolled her eyes. "Do I need to ask what you were doing instead? I'll bet it starts with 'Duel' and ends with 'Monsters'. Look, we don't need to hand it in until after lunch. Did you bring a packed lunch?"

"No," Yuugi replied miserably. "I'm supposed to get groceries after school because we have no food."

"How about this: I snag you something out of the cafeteria, and you spend lunch break doing your translation. Even if it's total nonsense, at least you'll have _something_, and Mr. Ishida can't fail you for needing extra tuition."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Sure. What are friends for, if not saving your soul from evil spirits and evil English teachers?"

Yuugi wanted to hug her. In another time and place he might have, but at that moment a hand clapped him on the shoulder and a familiar voice bellowed into his ear.

"Hey, Yuugi." Jounouchi leaned on him, grinning, without a book-bag in sight. That could mean one of two things; either he'd genuinely forgotten everything, or his father hadn't been hung-over enough to stay in bed this morning, meaning a quick getaway for Jounouchi, _sans_ school things, to preserve his health.

Yuugi wondered why Jounouchi stuck with a drunken, violent thug like that, but when asked, Jounouchi only ever shrugged and mumbled, "He's my pop," like that explained everything. Honda was even worse, leaving it as just a shrug and 'If You Don't Know Then I'm Not Going to Tell You' expression.

Anzu skipped away from them towards the student entrance. "See you later, guys. I gotta catch Mr. Ishida before he leaves the faculty lounge."

Jounouchi watched her go and sniffed. "That girl is a workaholic. It's not healthy." Then he leaned down and patted Yuugi on the shoulder again. "Heeeey, Yuugi, old buddy old pal – can I borrow your English translation to copy?"

* * *

Domino High was littered with vending machines, but Anzu had read too many articles on salt levels in processed foods to take this easy option.

Yuugi was addicted to convenience food when he could get his hands on it, and had an enviable metabolism that burned calories faster than a bombed oilfield, but Anzu was one of life's do-gooders in a whether-they-like-it-or-not way. She could've indulged him, nabbed a cup-o-soup or a pretzel and been back in five minutes.

Instead, she fought her way through the crowd and plunked a tray on the rail in the cafeteria. School food wasn't _so_ bad, she reasoned. At least they used fresh vegetables instead of chemicals all the colours of the rainbow.

After ticking off other people in the queue by pondering her choices, she elected to feed Yuugi with yakisoba; the fried Chinese noodles, offset by flaked fish, would help stir his brain into working order. Fish was brain food, she'd heard somewhere, and Yuugi's brain needed waking up today.

She'd watched him as the morning went on, head nodding further and further forward as his eyelids drooped. His forehead almost touched the desk during History. He was terrible unless he got a full night's rest; in fact, she was amazed he'd made it this far without dozing off.

Thinking this, she also flicked a pot of yoghurt and some mochi onto the tray, the little sweetened balls of rice making a noise like pebbles in a pond. Protein, carbs, and a sugar boost; that would keep him awake enough to do his homework before class resumed.

Students weren't supposed to take trays or plates from the cafeteria, so Anzu sat down only long enough to wrap up the mochi, remove the lid of her own bento box, and scrape the yakisoba into the lid. That done, she left the hurly-burly and carefully made her way back to the classroom.

However, rather than a diligently working Yuugi, what she came back to was an adorable figure slumped across his books, snoring softly. Yuugi's cheek was waffled against his book, which had made a red mark the shape of a right-angle. Even his hair drooped.

While it would've been kinder to leave him, Anzu sighed and gently shook his shoulder. "Yuugi, wake up. Hey, Yuugi, rise and shine."

Yuugi sat bolt upright. His eyes were so wild, and his pupils so wide, that Anzu actually took a step back, bringing both hands up to cup the bento halves so they wouldn't spill down her front.

For a second neither of them moved, as if assessing what the other would do next. Then Yuugi sucked in a deep breath, let it go and blinked at her.

"Geez, Yuugi, what's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"N-Nothing…" he stammered, scrubbing at his scalp. "I was just … I fell asleep."

"I could see that."

"You woke me up."

"Uh, yeah," she said in a 'No duh' way. "Homework, remember? English translation?" Anzu placed the bento lid of yakisoba on his desk and pushed it towards him with the tip of one finger. "Here, eat this. You'll be strung up by your big toes if Mr. Ishida catches you falling asleep in class."

Yuugi stared at the lid before dragging it under his mouth. "Thanks."

"Did you get _any_ sleep last night?" Anzu swivelled the chair and sat down at the desk in front of him to arrange her own lunch, fetching the yoghurt and mochi from her pockets to complete his meal.

"Sure I did," Yuugi said unconvincingly.

"I'll bet you didn't. I'll bet you sat up all night watching a Duel Monster marathon, or sorting cards, or something. Did Yami put you up to it?"

"No! I just had a bad dream and didn't get back to sleep afterwards." Yuugi suddenly looked panicked, as if he'd said more than he intended.

"A bad dream, huh?" Anzu mused. "That could be all the stress from not doing your homework. They say you get nightmares when you don't think about stuff during the day, so your subconscious has to figure it out at night instead."

"Uh, yeah. That's probably it." Yuugi stuffed noodles into his mouth, forestalling further discussion.

"It's no biggie, but it's a big fat warning sign that _you're_ worried about the amount of homework you do." Delicately, Anzu ate her own lunch. She wasn't a great cook by any estimation (last time she tried to make a meal for the gang they'd ordered pizza and helped her scrape the worst of the explosion from the kitchen walls and ceiling), but she could manage bento. "So how far did you get with the translation before you fell asleep?"

Yuugi looked at his book. "Uh…"

"You didn't do _any _of it?"

"I did the first line?"

"But the first line was in the example."

"Oh." Yuugi blushed and looked at the clock. "I'm screwed. I'm totally and utterly screwed. There's no way I'll be able to translate this whole passage before class starts."

"Sure you will. Look, turn your book a little so I can see it. I won't do it for you, but I'll point you in the right direction while we eat, okay?"

True to her word, Anzu _didn't_ do it for him. She clicked her tongue, tutted, rolled her eyes and jabbed with her finger, but was generally helpful. By the time the bell rang Yuugi had an entire page of scrawly handwriting ready to hand in. It wasn't perfect. It probably wasn't even very good. Despite having been to America several times, he found reading and writing English difficult and laboured with each task the teacher set. However, this time, at least, he'd escaped detention and thanked Anzu profusely as their classmates filtered into the room.

"No problem." She waved away his thanks, but two little spots of pink appeared on her cheeks, so he knew she was pleased. "Just remember to write down the due-date for homework next time, okay?"

"I will. Thank you so much, Anzu. You've saved my life."

"_Hardly."_ Yami had uncurled out of the Puzzle when they were midway though 'You can buy bread at the supermarket', and spent the whole time peering over Yuugi's shoulder and making comments about the uselessness of lessons anyway. _"I see no life-threatening situations here, only paltry formalities of learning."_

Yuugi doubted Yami was as staunchly anti-school as he made out, since more than once he'd shushed Yuugi during History and Literature classes, and shown a frankly disturbing interest in Pythagoras's Theorem. However, when Yami was of a mind about something he could be so grumpy you agreed with him just for (literal) peace of mind. At least that way he would sometimes attempt to amuse his aibou by standing next to the teacher and making a running commentary to what he or she was saying. More than one boring science lesson had passed thus, as had a happy few minutes afterwards when he told Honda and Jounouchi about it – though Yuugi didn't tell Anzu what Yami was up to anymore. Last time he did she just glared and said it was irresponsible when so much depended on their education.

A tall girl with kohl-rimmed eyes loomed over them. "You're in my seat, Mazaki."

"Charming as always, Mikata." Anzu rose and ruffled Yuugi's head in an entirely too-sibling-like way. However, she paused before moving back to her own place, and looked at him with concern. "Listen, Yuugi, you remember I said I'd come over sometime and help you with your geography project? Should I make it tonight? If you're losing sleep over this, then we should knock it on the head as soon as possible and put your mind at rest."

A small cheer erupted in Yuugi's back-brain, but he just nodded, trying to be casual and not jump up and down like an idiot. "That'd be cool. Thanks, Anzu."

"No problem."

"Are you two lovebirds finished?" The girl tapped her foot impatiently. "You've already had all lunch together. You can smooch some other time."

Yuugi flushed to the roots of his hair, but Anzu just rolled her eyes.

"See, Mikata, you only understand things in their most basic terms. It _is_ possible for a boy and a girl to be friends without it leading to romance – or in your case, a quick fumble behind the bike sheds."

The girl, Mikata, bared her teeth in a gruesome parody of a smile. "Judging me by your own standards?"

There was history between Anzu and Mikata Teki – they'd been 'friends' in elementary school, until Anzu threw in her lot with Yuugi. Mikata was one of 'Those Girls', the girls all other girls wanted to be or be with, and loved to secretly loathe. Just the way she entered a room was obnoxious, pounding her heels and blinking her big, overdone eyes as though she expected everyone to admire her expensive, genuine leather shoes.

Mikata wasn't used to rejection, especially in favour of geeky little twerps like Yuugi Mutou. Consequently, she'd begun a vendetta against them as vicious as it was petty, which lasted until Jounouchi and Honda came on the scene. Even Mikata Teki was wary of those two, so her vendetta downgraded into a snippy little feud with Anzu, relegated to meetings in the classroom and graffiti in the girls' bathroom.

Anzu dismissed the whole thing as casually as Jounouchi and Honda's threats when she forced them to watch chick-flicks on Movie Night. Mikata Teki, she said, was so far below her radar she was more likely to hear an earthworm fart than a snipe from her lips.

Still, Yuugi noted, when it came to the crunch Anzu still got her hands dirty instead of backing down. He watched the two girls metaphorically circle each other, aware of the tension crackling over his head. Female fights were even nastier when the words stopped – that was when you got glares that could melt your fillings. It was only the timely arrival of the teacher that put an end to what could have been a very nasty squabble.

"Trust Mr. Ishida to spoil the catfight action," Jounouchi grumbled as he slid into his seat. He sat closer to Yuugi than Anzu, and so felt safe in saying this – apparently incorrectly, judging by the murderous look Anzu hurled his way.

"I heard that," she mouthed.

"Dude! Is she related to bats or something?"

Yuugi waited until Anzu had turned away. "You know how it is with Mikata."

"I know, I know, but she doesn't have to take it out on me."

"Anzu hasn't done anything to you."

"Not yet." Jounouchi wiggled a finger in his ear and faced front, ready to start the afternoon only because at the other end was a brief portal of freedom between school and home.

Jounouchi and Honda had arranged to go to the video arcade after school, and Yuugi had been going with them – though he now realised he couldn't if Anzu was coming over. While she wasn't against the arcade, something told him she wouldn't be dissuaded from homework.

Another yawn struggled up Yuugi's throat. He tamped it down and frowned, reminded of his earlier snooze. Though brief, it had brought with it a repeat of last night's dream that unsettled him terribly. He didn't usually get recurring nightmares – recurring dreams, yes, but they were pastel-coloured and tended to feature bikinis, back-rubs and … other things beginning with B. Thinking about this nightmare sent fresh jangles of unease through him.

Yami coalesced on the edge of his desk. _"Something is wrong. I can tell."_

Yuugi thought back at him, _No it's not. I'm just tired._

"_That excuse may work on Anzu, but not me, aibou. Your mind is troubled, and your troubles are my troubles. What is bothering you?"_

For a second Yuugi considered telling him. It was still ridiculous to be so flustered by a dumb dream, but maybe telling Yami would disperse the anxiety in his gut. A problem shared was a problem halved, right?

Yuugi swung between happy-go-lucky and anxious. By comparison, he'd seldom seen Yami act without confidence that what he was doing was absolute and right. Of course, he hadn't been around when Yami fell to pieces during the Oricalchos fiasco, but even others' accounts weren't enough to dim Yuugi's confidence in Yami. Now they'd retrieved the Egytian God Cards, someday, possibly soon, Yami would leave him – leave them all – but until then Yuugi deferred to his self-assurance.

"Mr. Mutou," Mr Ishida interrupted Yuugi's thoughts in as timely a fashion as he had interrupted Anzu and Mikata's spat. "Perhaps you'd like to begin with Segment One?"

"Uh…" Yuugi clumsily stood up and then realised he had no idea what the teacher was talking about.

Jounouchi hissed out the side of his mouth, "Translation homework. Better you than me, buddy."

Yuugi was flooded with relief that he had something to read out, and thought hastily at Yami, _I'll tell you later_.

"_Yes, you will."_

"Mr. Mutou?"

Yuugi cleared his throat. "Um, 'In the supermarket you can buy bread…'"

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_"Wigged ... out?"_

-- Commonly found in the mouths of characters from _Buffy: The Vampire Slayer_.

"_Get to bed, Yuugi. It's bumblebutt in the morning and you have school."_

-- This is a riff off the word 'Bumblefuck', as in, "What are you doing still using your laptop to write stories at bumblefuck in the morning!?" I just can't see Sugoroku as the cussing type, even at 4a.m.

_Yuugi stuffed n__attō_ _into his mouth. He barely tasted it, and wished they had some sour plums to wake up his palette._

-- Nattō is a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans, popular especially at breakfast.

_He hadn't tried to call Jounouchi last week when he dreamt they were both drowning in custard, or Ryou after that dream about vacationing in the Bermuda Triangle with Gackt_

-- Gackt Camui is a famous Japanese musician, songwriter and actor.

_By the time he was ready to leave, Yuugi had convinced himself his nightmare was the product of too much dorayaki before bedtime._

-- Dorayaki is a type of Japanese confection, consisting of two small pancake-like patties made from kasutera (sponge cake made of sugar, flour, eggs, and starch syrup.) wrapped around a filling of sweet red bean paste.

_Domino High loomed over them like some vengeful god of education waiting for human sacrifices. _

-- This feeling doesn't change whether you're pupil or teacher. Trust me.

_She wasn't a great cook by any estimation (last time she tried to make a meal for the gang they'd ordered pizza and helped her scrape the worst of the explosion from the kitchen walls and ceiling), but she could manage bento._

-- I've always liked the idea Anzu is a terrible cook, but tries hard anyway. I imagine the guys would be her ever-present guinea pigs. Bento is (and I'm quoting directly from Wikipedia here): 'a single-portion takeout meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass-produced to hand crafted lacquerware. While bento are readily available at convenience stores and bento shops throughout Japan, it is still considered an essential skill of a Japanese housewife to be able to prepare an appealing boxed lunch. Bento can be very elaborate, aesthetically pleasing cuisine arrangements. Often the food is arranged in such a way as to resemble other objects: dolls, flowers, leaves, and so forth.'


	3. If Only Tears Could Bring You Back

* * *

**2. If Only Tears Could Bring You Back**

* * *

**How will I start  
Tomorrow without you here?  
Who's heart will guide me  
When all the answers disappear?**

**Is it too late?  
Are you too far gone to stay?  
Best Friends Forever  
Should never have to go away.**

**What will I do?  
You know I'm only half without you.  
How will I make it through?**

-- From _If Only Tears Could Bring You Back _by Midnight Sons.

* * *

"Seriously, dude, you're missing out. I'm gonna whoop Honda's ass at Goo Zombies Seven."

Anzu swung her bag over her shoulder, clutching the handle in one fist. "And your grades demonstrate your prowess, oh mighty zombie-smasher."

Jounouchi frowned. "Is sucking the fun out of everything your favourite hobby?"

Honda clapped him on the shoulder. "Dude, leave it. You won't win."

Jounouchi took one look at Anzu's stance and shook his head, conceding agreement. "Man, I can defeat megalomaniacs who want to conquer the world, but I can't win an argument with a dumb girl. How lame is that?"

"Dumb girl? Are you calling me stupid?" Anzu's eyes flashed.

Jounouchi shoved Honda out the school gate and in the opposite direction along the street, towards the centre of town. "Later, Yuugi. Call us when you're done having no fun."

Yuugi gave a tiny wave as they departed, but when he looked up at Anzu he saw her eyes were flashing with mischief, not anger.

She shook her own head at their retreating backs and talked as she and Yuugi started off towards the Kame Game Shop, intending to stop off en route to pick up the Mutous' much-needed groceries. "Seriously, though, he should get his act together as far as his grades are concerned. I worry about him, not passing school and what might happen. Maybe if I offered to tutor him…"

"Jounouchi's grades aren't that bad," Yuugi protested.

"No, but they're not that great, either. Considering his … financial position," Anzu chose her words carefully, "if he wants to get into a good college he's looking at scholarships or waiting a few years to earn the money to go. He can't just coast through school anymore, pulling last-minute victories out of his-" she blinked, "uh, ear. Our whole futures are at stake."

Yuugi bit his lip. "Maybe you _do_ worry too much…"

Anzu raised an eyebrow at him.

"Not that it's a bad thing!" Yuugi hastily waved his hands as though swatting flies. "Um, I mean – it's good that you worry, because it shows you care, but… um… what I mean to say is-"

She laughed. "I know, I know, I shouldn't act like his mother. Goodness knows he should be building bridges with his real mom so she can do all that sort of worrying."

Yuugi decided against commenting on that topic. Instead, he counted cracks in the pavement and wondered if he could get all the way to the end of the street without stepping on one.

"As my dad would say, the boy's too big to be wearing diapers. It's just that sometimes I can't help myself; I see the directions our lives are headed and Jounouchi's just seems so _aimless_. He has no ambition. You'd hardly think he and Shizuka are related."

Yuugi was forced to agree. Shizuka, who acted so sweet and naive, had already set her sights on becoming a doctor. She wasn't frightened of the hard work involved in getting there, or the huge chunk of her life she'd have to give up to train before she saw inside a hospital as more than an outpatient. Even the idea of trying to save lives and failing didn't faze her; such was her dedication after doctors wrought such differences in her own life.

By comparison, Jounouchi was indeed aimless. His only goal was helping his sister achieve _her_ dreams; he seemed to harbour none of his own. Even Honda had expressed interest in the military. Jounouchi spent the entire Domino High Careers Day snoozing or cleaning under his nails with a fork filched from the cafeteria, showing no interest in any of the leaflets, workshops or guest speakers. It was as if he'd accepted what people had told him all his life – that he was a nobody, meant for nothing and talentless. Though he never admitted to thinking it, Yuugi suspected Jounouchi assumed that if he tried, he would fail, so what was the point in trying?

Still … Yuugi couldn't imagine Jounouchi ever accepting Anzu's interference. He was too proud, even if his pride ended up robbing him of his direction in life.

_This is silly_, Yuugi thought. _How can I call myself Jounouchi's friend if I'm not willing to put myself out and do what's best for him the way Anzu does? _He'd never really thought of it that way before. There had always been duelling, and he guessed he'd just assumed that Jounouchi's talents would lead him to a career in the arena.

Perhaps they still would, but perhaps they wouldn't, and if he didn't duel then what else would he do? What else _could_ he do without the proper exam results on his resume? Everyone had kind of assumed Yuugi would pursue a career in Duel Monsters too, but more and more Yuugi found himself favouring his grandfather's footsteps. He'd surprised his teachers on Careers Day by asking what subjects he needed to study Archaeology at university. Anzu was right – Yuugi just didn't want to be the one to tell Jounouchi that.

He sighed and opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped.

They were just passing from the main street into a quieter one, though there were still enough cars for a low growl of traffic. Their route led them past the mouth of an alleyway, where Anzu jerked her head up.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That noise; like a cat with its tail shut in a door." She peered down the alley. "It was yowling. It sounded in pain."

Yuugi wasn't a great fan of cats, but he paused and also looked. "I didn't hear anything."

"I could've sworn I …" Anzu looked uncertain. "Maybe I was wrong. Are you _sure_ you didn't hear anything?"

"Well I was a little distracted, but I'm pretty sure."

"Hm." Anzu didn't look convinced. She had a weakness for small fuzzy creatures, especially the kind that liked to be petted – something Yuugi didn't like to dwell on after Jounouchi commented how this formed the entire basis of his friendship with her.

"Do you want me to go and look if anything's there?" he asked.

"No, I'll go," she said hastily, not wanting him to go in case there really was a creature in pain. For all he'd saved the world, Yuugi was squeamish and went pale at sight of a nosebleed. He'd probably faint if faced with a genuinely injured cat – quite likely, since kids from the local middle school found sport in throwing rocks and tying firecrackers to the tails of strays.

Anzu went into the alley while Yuugi waited. He felt Yami disentangle himself from the Puzzle after yet another nap and was about to open their mindlink when a single, sharp cry rang out.

"Anzu!" Immediately, and without thought to his own safety, Yuugi pelted into the alley.

Anzu was facedown on the floor, but pushing herself up onto her arms. She raised her head at Yuugi's approach. He saw shock and outrage in her eyes.

"My bag!"

"Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine, I just fell when whoever it was knocked into me, but they took my schoolbag."

"But you're okay." Yuugi breathed a sigh of relief. Hearing her shout had sent electricity skittering along his nerve-endings; a concentrated burst of what he always felt when one of his friends was in trouble. His muscles relaxed and he unclenched his fists – not that he could've _done_ anything had someone been trying to mug her, but at least he could've tried. Having Yami lurking in the wings helped, too. There was a lot to be said for having a magical king of Egypt on your side in an emergency.

And speaking of emergencies…

Anzu scrambled to her feet and started running into the warren of alleys that lined this part of town.

"Anzu, wait!"

"My schoolbag, Yuugi. It has all my notes in it – _and_ my geography project. I worked too long and hard on that thing to start from scratch just because some bozo tried to rob me."

"But Anzu -" Yuugi ran after her. "You don't even know which way the guy went." If indeed it was a guy and not just one member of a gang – in which case they could be running smack dab into even more trouble.

"Sure I do. He went this way." Her long legs ate up the ground at a tremendous rate, as she zigzagged through the alleyways.

Yuugi looked around as he ran and realised that they had entered the network of alleys behind the line of stores not far from Otogi's. They weren't far from where he lived. If they'd just kept walking they'd be approaching his front door by now. Instead, they were pelting though garbage and slipping in things careless dog-walkers had neglected to pick up. Yuugi skidded on one into a wall – literally.

"Ow."

"_Aibou, let me take over. I can make her stop this mad flight before either of you injure yourselves."_ Yami was at his elbow, reaching out his spirit to feel for Yuugi's hurts. It was an odd feeling, like when your foot falls asleep and then sensation roars back with a mass of prickles.

Yuugi shook his head. "She needs her schoolbag -"

Another cry rang out, this one laced with pain. This time Yuugi looked up in time to see Anzu fall to the ground, but there was something wrong. Nobody was _there_ to knock into her. Apart from them, the alley was completely empty, and Yuugi felt a strange chill down his spine.

_Something is really, really wrong here. _It wasn't a conscious thought, or one instigated by Yami. It just appeared in Yuugi's head, fully formed, as though waiting for this moment to act as a trigger.

Anzu landed heavily on one hip. Yuugi was at her side in an instant, though he looked around, hoping to see he was mistaken and there _was_ a mugger. A mugger would be preferable to some of the other options whirling through his brain. That was the thing about dealing in Duel Monsters and magic all the time; when freaky things happened, you immediately jumped to paranormal conclusions.

"_Aibou!" _Yami said insistently.

Yuugi heard the urgency in his tone and knew that Yami sensed it too – an odd tingle in the air, like static electricity mixed with early morning chill. The last time he felt something like that had been in a sinking temple, facing off against Dartz; and before that on top of a tower with Malik leering at him. Evil had a very distinct presence that was unmistakable, even if you'd only encountered it once – and Yuugi had encountered it far more than once.

That was when he noticed the thin tendrils of what looked like mist around the piles of garbage. He could have dismissed them as just smoke from a cigarette that hadn't been stubbed out properly, but that was an ostrich reaction and Yuugi was far beyond that. The mist _crawled_ over the garbage, crackling black plastic bags and gently rippling the surface of garbage-water puddles. It heralded nothing good, so Yuugi nodded to Yami and relinquished control.

Anzu looked at him. "Yuugi?" There was a faint tremor in her voice, as though she sensed the swap and the strangeness in the air.

"Stay close," Yami instructed, holding her elbow with one hand and her waist with the other. Since he was _so_ Yami he failed to notice the pink this brought to her cheeks, instead nodding towards the mist to draw her attention to it

However, rather than act frightened, Anzu shook off her blush and scowled. "Aw, man. Can't we even _walk home from school_ without weird things happening to us? Do we send out weirdness pheromones or something?"

The mist oozed off the garbage. It moved like it knew what it was doing; like it was sentient, leeching its way along the ground in a series of puffs and eddies. It looked almost oily, like grease across the surface of water, or the smoke Yuugi had seem rise from factory chimneys at the edge of Domino. Its path was horribly obvious.

Yami stood up, dragging Anzu with him. With one hand he pulled out Yuugi's Duel Deck.

At once a ghastly, gurgling laughter filled the air. It reverberated off the garbage cans and pierced even Yuugi's ethereal ears, winding its way around his brain and seeping into the cracks like poison from a snakebite along an artery. The only similar thing Yuugi had ever heard was Malik's dark half at the apex of his powers.

"Paltry, paltry, paltry. Silly little boy with your silly little cards. Do you think me scared by paper and ink? Paper and ink, paper and ink, paper and ink. Such arrogance. Such conceit."

The voice wasn't like Yami's over the mindlink. This was solid and real and terrible.

Yami narrowed his eyes, flicking the topmost card into his fingers. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Ah, but you're _not_ the boy, are you? No, no, no; you're the ancient one. So I shall call you Ancient One. You taste of dust and bad memories. Do you miss it, human? Does it bring you pain to know what you've lost to time and tide?"

"Who are you and what do you want?" Yami asked again, face impassive.

"Rudeness. Discourtesy. Disrespect. Your long years have brought you few manners, Ancient One."

"Who are you -?"

"Yes, yes, yes, I heard you the first time. Your impoliteness irks me, but I will answer one of your questions. Questions, questions, questions. I am Aramanth, or it is one of my names. I have many, but you may call me this, and I shall call you Ancient One. And your little friend, whom you think I cannot see, shall be Innocent One. Mmm, his purity is mouth-watering."

Yuugi felt Yami clamp down on his temper.

Anzu shifted from one foot to the other. "Pharaoh…" She and the guys often referred to Yami by his title these days, as though he was beginning to be defined by his past life's status – or as though they were trying to reconcile that this was _not _Yuugi, for all he wore his skin and viewed them through his eyes.

Yuugi would have reached to pat her arm, but Yami just grunted, entirely focussed on the writhing mist.

It hadn't come any closer, but undulated in a half-circle around them like a snake being charmed. Tendrils reached and then curled back on themselves, reached and curled back, in a dance as mesmerising as it was unsettling. The voice was solid but the mist was not, though the two were obviously connected. When the voice spoke the mist undulated in time with its words.

Yuugi was too used to facing enemies with human faces. Even the Oricalchos had worked through Dartz and his minions.

"Ooh, yesss." It was like silk tearing on thorns. "I can feel his fear … it's delectable … oh, Ancient One, won't you let Innocent One out to play? Your soul is dark and jagged, but his is bright and holds such potential for misery…"

"You will not touch him," Yami snarled.

"I do not need to."

Despite himself, Yuugi shuddered. He was glad Anzu couldn't see him, though when he glanced at her she looked pretty shuddery herself.

"It sounds like … like something from a bad horror movie," she said.

Yami didn't respond, too fixed on the mist and what it was doing. The tips of his fingers had gone white where they pinched the card.

To anyone else, facing a supernatural force with nothing but a bit of laminated paper might seem ridiculous, but Yami could do more damage with that bit of paper than most could do with an Uzi. Even Yuugi wasn't sure of the limits of Yami's powers. He was painfully aware of what Yami had done during those first few months after he solved the Millennium Puzzle, when he was just a raging ball of pain and vengeance with a human soul glimmering between the cracks.

"I have already tasted your pain, Ancient One. It was scrumptious, but now I hunger and I wish to sample new delicacies. Hungry, hungry, hungry. Won't you please let him out?"

"You will touch nobody here, or I will destroy you."

"Then perhaps you would volunteer your own pain. Can I have you instead, Ancient One? Will you come away with me?"

Yuugi's spine went ramrod. Why, when enemies showed up, did it always lead to one of them being ransomed, or kidnapped, or used to torture the others? He was about to say to Yami that they should run – after all, they knew nothing about this enemy and it didn't look like it was interested in playing Duel Monsters.

_Don't you dare try to mind-swap with me_. Yami's thought snapped into Yuugi like a bullwhip.

At once, the mist formed into a dark tendril that lashed out and wrapped around the Millennium Puzzle. It caressed the sides almost lovingly, until Yami snatched it away. He stepped backwards, treading on Anzu's foot in his haste to keep the Puzzle out of reach.

"Ouch!"

"I challenge you to a Shadow Game," Yami growled at the mist, which laughed mockingly.

"A game? I have no interest in your little games, Ancient One. I am far beyond games and toys and childish pastimes. Hungry, hungry, hungry. I wish to feed."

"You can't refuse." Yami flipped his card to reveal the Black Magician. It was his favourite Duel Monster, and the one he felt most comfortable having at his side in a jam – even if he couldn't play it first in an actual duel. "You must accept a challenge given."

Yet instead of answering him, the voice whispered, "Innocent One."

It was far closer than before. It seemed to reach right into Yuugi's mind and speak directly to him and nobody else. He blinked, looking at Yami and Anzu for a reaction, but they didn't appear to have heard it.

"What would you give up, Innocent One?"

"_What?"_ He wasn't used to being talked to when Yami was in control – at least not by anyone except Yami.

"To keep safe your precious someone? Ancient One has so much despair inside of him. It was released when he lost you once before, and it was delightful. I followed him through sand and dust and dune, over rock and mountain and cliff. His pain was succulent. I gorged that day. Would you go with me, to keep him safe? Or can I keep him, Innocent One? Can I take him home with me? Can I feast that way?"

"_You-you leave Yami alone!"_

The voice laughed. "But that is what would sadden him, and please me. He does not wish to be alone, lonely, solitary. If I took you with me, would it break him? If I took him with me, would it break you? Would it break your heart? Would you _cry_?"

"You must accept a challenge given," Yami said again, louder this time. "Aramanth! If that is indeed your name, then answer me!"

"Split you two apart, and the other would weep," the mist singsonged. "Such pain! Such misery! Ooooooh…" It groaned.

Yuugi shrank against the sound, before straightening up again and squaring his shoulders. He was stronger than he used to be. While frightened, he wasn't about to roll over and not face his fears.

"_You can't have him,"_ he told it. _"And I won't go with you, either. You're not taking anyone with you."_

"You wish for me to accept Ancient One's challenge?"

"_I want you to leave us alone."_

"Hm. Your loyalty is smooth and fragrant. This pleases me. It will give zest to your misery – what you could've done, second guesses, might-have beens, what-ifs. But Ancient One is so practised at unhappiness and anger. Jagged, spiky, serrated. Spice! Which one should I choose?"

"Aramanth!" Yami narrowed his eyes. "Why don't you answer?"

"What is that thing, anyway?" Anzu asked.

The presence retreated from Yuugi's mind. He felt it as one might feel the sudden removal of a splinter from under the skin.

"I am Aramanth, eater of sorrow," announced the voice so al could hear.

"What? What the heck does that mean?" Anzu demanded.

"Ah, Faithful One, who trailed after Ancient One through the desert. First to touch Innocent One upon his return. Caught between the two – torn, torn, torn! I do believe you are the key. When Innocent One was taken, your misery was great, but eclipsed by Ancient One's. Your grief was bland in comparison. Tasteless, flat, unsavoury. And you are precious to Innocent One, oh yes. Precious someone, precious someone, precious someone."

Alarm spiked through Yuugi. He flashed back to his nightmare and cried out, "Anzu!"

Yami twitched as Yuugi's anxiety rocketed through him. "Anzu, get behind me."

"Yes," the voice said silkily. "Do."

Coils of mist shot from the wall behind them to wrap around Anzu's neck. She made a choking noise as they yanked her backwards, hands flying to her throat. It wasn't like normal mist at all; it was tangible, strong as rope, and took hold of her wrists as she scrabbled to loosen its grip.

Yami turned and grabbed for her, catching her lower arm and hauling back in a tug-o-war.

"_Anzu!"_ Yuugi shouted. Suddenly his dream seemed horribly, horribly clear. When he blinked he could see the images etched inside his eyelids: Anzu's tears, the spectral black fist, the splash of blood - _"Anzu!"_

Anzu's eyes bulged as her windpipe constricted.

Yami grunted, trying to pull her free, but the mist was too strong and too fast. It snapped more tendrils around her arms and legs, jerking her feet from under her and snatching her away with such force that his grip was easily torn loose.

Swirling close to the brickwork, one wisp solidified into an angle, like a triangle or a spearhead embedded in the wall. A ripple spread through it like that of a rock dropped into a pond, and suddenly it didn't look like mist. It looked hard and shiny, like a piece of slate or tinted glass. Anzu was pulled towards it so fast neither Yuugi nor Yami realised what was about to happen until there was no 'about to'.

Anzu gasped, eyes widening in pain and surprise, as the spearhead punched out through the front her chest.

For a moment the world seemed frozen, as all minds galloped to catch up with their eyes.

Click.

"ANZU!" Yuugi cannoned back into his skull so fast both he and Yami reeled. "**ANZU**!"

The mist released her feet and she stood there, pinioned, mouth opening and shutting but no sound coming out. She looked down at the point still jutting from her body. with trembling fingers she touched it.

The mist that had previously been her bonds churned above her head, before streaming into her mouth, nose, ears and the corners of her eyes. Anzu convulsed, throwing her head back so that it ricocheted off the wall. A violent tremor ran through her entire body, like an epileptic convulsion. Then the mist left her again in a single great whoosh. It blasted towards Yuugi, briefly whirled around the Millennium Puzzle, and dissipated.

Anzu's head dropped onto her chest.

Then she fell.

Yuugi rushed forward as the hard point evaporated and she toppled forward, no longer pinned in place like a butterfly in a display case. He half caught, half fell under her weight, and felt something wet and sticky on the back of her head as he worked to sit her upright.

"Anzu, talk to me. Anzu! Anzu, _please_…"

"The pain!" the silky voice moaned with pleasure. "I have never tasted anything so genuine … so wholesome … oh, Innocent One, you were worth waiting for. Ancient One was just an appetiser compared with you. Sweet, satisfying, sincere. I believe I will burst with pleasure!"

"_Aramanth!"_ Yuugi heard Yami yell. _"You will pay for this!"_

"Double dosage! You echo him, Ancient One. You hurt because he hurts. The two of you together … delicious."

"_Monster!"_

"Joy! Rapture! Ecstasy!"

Shadows rippled at the edges of Yuugi's vision, but he barely noticed Yami's rage start to take physical form.

"Anzu?" His voice trembled as her head flopped back and he looked into her blank, directionless stare. "Anzu…?" he whispered, feeling as though _his_ throat was being constricted. "Please, no…"

"Yes!" squealed the voice. "Yesyesyes!" And its laugher echoed like a yowling cat, as the first of Yuugi's tears fell.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

"_I'm gonna whoop Honda's ass at Goo Zombies Seven."_

-- The _Goo Zombies_ franchise is entirely fictional, originating in Xiaolin Showdown, where Kimiko and Raimundo have an ongoing struggle held through these games. As far as I know, no clear winner was ever established during the show's run.

_Kids from the local middle school found sport in throwing rocks and tying firecrackers to the tails of strays._

-- When writing this there was an incident where some kids from the school I was working attached a firecracker to the tail of a cat, torturing the animal eventually blowing the whole tail off for fun. It was sick and twisted, but not uncommon. Sometimes I despair of the human race.

* * *


	4. How to Save a Life

* * *

**3. How to Save a Life**

* * *

**Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness;  
And I would have stayed up with you all night,  
Had I known how to save a life.**

-- From_ How to Save a Life _by The Fray

* * *

Jounouchi wasn't surprised to find his dad sprawled on the couch when he got home.

He'd bullied Honda into staying out as long as possible, but eventually the arcade closed and they'd been ejected onto the street. No matter how he dragged his feet, Jounouchi still ended up parting ways with his bud and arriving back at his own front door.

That morning he'd left his father grumbling and banging around looking for aspirin they didn't have. Jounouchi would've bet an ant to an elephant the man would then have collapsed in front of daytime TV until, possibly around lunchtime, he boiled an egg or grabbed some bread as a makeshift meal. After that he would've fallen asleep to make up for what he'd missed by waking early.

So no, Jounouchi wasn't surprised to find his dad on the couch. He was, however, surprised to find him conscious. The filthy mood was pars for the course, though. It went with the whole eyes-open thing.

"Hi, Dad." Jounouchi wasted no time in making a beeline for his room. Honda had treated him to a hotdog, so he didn't need to fix dinner for himself. Thank goodness he'd put a bolt on his bedroom door, too, so the old fart couldn't demand he make food for him.

His father grunted, but sat up. "Hey! Hey, Katsuya, you lazy bum. I ain't your answering machine."

Jounouchi paused, putting two and two together. "Someone called for me?"

The heck? His friends knew not to phone him a home, and neither Mom nor Shizuka would risk the verbal abuse talking to Dad might provoke. He hadn't been in trouble with the cops in months, and it was unlikely the school would want to talk to him over his father, so who could be calling him?

"Yeah." His father scratched his belly through his rumpled shirt. Hard to think that he'd once been the most popular guy in school – the dreamboat who left broken hearts and envy in his wake. Now all he left in his wake were regrets and methane. "Some kid. Pukey or something. Couldn't catch his name – little wimp was bawling too much." On cue, he burped and raised himself onto one buttock to relieve his distended colon. "Pansy."

That set off Jounouchi's alarm bells. Yuugi? Crying? "What did he say?"

"Meh." His father shrugged.

Jounouchi gritted his teeth and told himself to keep his voice even. "Dad, what did he say?"

"Said for you to go to the hospital. But don't think you're skipping out on making me dinner! I've had a blinding headache and ain't eaten all day."

The alarm bells were joined by a siren. "Why?" he asked carefully, resisting the urge to shake his dad by the shirtfront for being so obtuse.

"Because I had a good time last night, stupid."

"Not that. Why did he say to go to the hospital?"

Suddenly his father's expression turned sly and knowing. "I reckon you already know, doncha?"

"No. that's why I'm asking."

"Nah you're asking because you're hoping you've got it wrong. I wore that exact same look when your mother laid this one on _me_."

Jounouchi gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to say more, but found himself thrown by his father's next question.

"You got a girlfriend you didn't tell me about?"

"What?"

"You been seeing some chick in secret?"

His brain ticked over. It couldn't be about Shizuka, since she was in Tokyo and his father would've used her name. Mai hadn't been seen since the Oricalchos fiasco – much to Jounouchi's continued chagrin – and besides, his last letter from her said she was in America. Of the girls both he and Yuugi knew, that only left… "Was this phonecall about a girl called Anzu?"

"So I was right. You _do _know. It is about some girlfriend of yours! I knew it. What happened? Did you knock her up? 'Cause this Pukey kid was awful insistent you get down there to see her. You been bringing bastard kids into the world, Katsuya?" He laughed, then clutched his throbbing head and wagged a finger at his son. "Don't expect any handouts from me to get rid of it."

Jounouchi curled his lip and pulled on the jacket he'd just shucked. "I'll see you later, Pop."

"I hope it was worth it. I'll bet you gave her one, didn't you, Katsuya? I'll bet you nailed her good, the same as your old man!"

Jounouchi might've reacted, had he not been so concerned about what had made Yuugi so upset he phoned Jounouchi's apartment in tears. He knew Jounouchi wouldn't be home, but had still left a message with his father. That meant whatever it was, it was serious.

"Hey, what about my din-" The door slammed shut on his father's shout.

_What the hell's going on here?_ Jounouchi wondered, as he headed in the direction of the hospital. It was a good forty-five minute walk, but Honda's house was en route, so maybe he could cadge a ride if Yuugi had called there too.

He had. Honda's face was grim when he opened the front door. "You got the message too, huh?"

"A little bit. What's going on?"

"Anzu's in the E.R. Something about an attack."

"She was mugged?"

Honda shook his head. "A _magical_ attack."

Memories of all the enemies they'd ever faced surged to the front of Jounouchi's brain. He recalled the damage they'd caused, all the emotional backlash and actual, physical harm. Mostly he thought of Mai, and the pitiful thing she'd become after being attacked with magic. If Anzu had been rushed to hospital and Yuugi was crying and ignoring all the rules of contacting their houses, then that meant something really bad had come up – and he and Honda were playing video games when it happened.

"Shit."

"I know." Honda twirled his motorcycle keys around his finger and closed the door behind him. "C'mon. I have a spare helmet in the garage."

* * *

Domino General was a no-frills building on the outskirts of town. Honda and Jounouchi rolled into the lot, parked, and ran into the foyer. They'd been there before and could remember the way to Reception, where they asked after Anzu Mazaki.

Jounouchi wasn't too proud to admit his heart sank when the pretty blonde nurse directed them to a waiting room two floors up. In his heart of hearts he'd been hoping this was all some giant mistake; that this was some other Anzu Mazaki and Yuugi had been fooled.

An old lady with a portable drip was in the elevator. She was in her eighties, and her own personal elevator didn't go all the way to the top anymore. She had skin like an alligator and cranberry hair teased into a wonky beehive. She was wearing orthopaedic shoes, fishnet stockings and a tight spandex miniskirt and a top that showed a lot of wrinkled cleavage. Jounouchi guessed she smoked three packs a day and slept naked in a tanning bed when she wasn't carting her own urine on a pole around D.G.

"Going up!" she sang out to them.

"Second floor," Honda said without missing a beat.

She pushed the button and smiled inanely. "Second floor, ladies' lingerie and better dresses. Watch your step dears." She caught Honda's arm as he stepped out. "Hey, sugar, how about you come back with me to my room?"

Honda didn't even flinch, just unpeeled her fingers with a lie about his girlfriend not being too happy if he went off with someone else. The old lady canted her hips and waggled her eyebrows.

"Last chance, hot stuff. Offers like this don't come along every day."

"Believe me, ma'am, she'd kill me for even thinking about it."

"Man, you sure are pussy-whipped, sugar." She laughed and waved at them.

Jounouchi drew close as they jogged along the corridor. "Bullshitter."

"You'd better believe it." Honda gestured at the doors they passed. "You remember what number we're looking for, genius?"

"Um… forty-two, I think."

"You _think_?"

"Be my guest to try something different, mastermind."

"Like 'Waiting Room', maybe?"

Jounouchi pushed open the door, heart skipping a beat. This wasn't the room he'd sat in for hours while Shizuka had her operation, but it sure felt the same. He had the same knot in his gut as he peered in and recognised the same out-of-date wooden coffee tables crammed between chairs and couches. The room had the same strange air, like being trapped inside a sigh. The wall-mounted TV could've been tuned to the same talk-show, for all he paid attention to it.

Honda was right behind him. "Hey, there's Yuugi!"

And indeed, there _was_ Yuugi, sitting in a hard plastic chair next to a vending machine and looking like his entire world had fallen apart. He was the only one in the room and looked tinier than ever.

They approached quickly but carefully, and there was none of the usual backslapping or ankle-biting. Honda hung back a little, but Jounouchi ploughed forward with his usual finesse. "Yuugi?"

He looked up, and they saw his eyes were swollen from crying.

"Dude, what happened?"

Yuugi sniffed, scrunching a tissue in his hand. They later learned a kindly nurse had given it to him, thinking he was Anzu's little brother. They also learned Grandpa Mutou was there, but busy speaking to a doctor while they waited for Anzu's mother to get the message on her answering machine.

_Man, that's one message I wouldn't want to play back_, Jounouchi thought, as he plonked into the chair next to Yuugi and awkwardly rubbed his back. A traitorous part of his brain wondered how his own mother would react to news he was in the hospital, but he squashed it.

He was painfully aware this spot was usually Anzu's – she did physical comfort way better than him. He was still too caught up in the macho-man thing to do any of the touchy-feely crap, but one glance at Yuugi told him that crap was exactly what he needed right now – save hearing Anzu was fine and they could all go home.

As the story unfolded, however, Jounouchi doubted the possibility of that.

"So … this thing just vanished?" Honda asked when Yuugi had eventually choked everything out. "This Aramanth thing, it just went poof as soon as Anzu … when it'd done … um …" He was struggling for words that wouldn't dissolve Yuugi into fresh tears.

Jounouchi could feel Yuugi trembling. Man, the little guy hadn't been this broken up since Kaiba gave his grandfather a heart attack, or after Kaiba threatened to jump off Pegasus's castle and Yami offered to help him.

Of course, what Jounouchi _didn't_ know was that the last time Yuugi cried like this, it had been because of his own loss to Malik during Battle City.

Honda knew, but he kept his own counsel.

Jounouchi probably would have been uncomfortable knowing, but also secretly pleased. Either way it wasn't something he wanted to deal with right now. Jounouchi dealt in action and fighting, not talking or getting in touch with his deeper emotions – one of the many reasons he'd screwed up so royally with Mai.

"It just evaporated," Yuugi told them. "One second it was laughing and swirling all around us, and then the next it was gone. And I was holding her. I was holding her in my arms. I thought she was dead. When I looked into her eyes, I honestly thought she was dead, and I-I screamed. I guess that was what brought people running. We weren't exactly on the main street, but they came out the backs of the stores and there was a lot of shouting."

Honda nodded. "Any word on how she is?"

"I … I don't know. I don't … I think I may have blacked out, or blanked it, or something. I remember someone trying to make me let go of Anzu, but I couldn't, and then they told me they needed to load her into the ambulance and would I move so they could put an oxygen mask on her and … and she was alive. I can't believe I thought she was dead when she was alive." Yuugi held his head in his hands. "I didn't know what to do when we got here. They were already calling Anzu's mom, but they asked me if I wanted them to call anyone, so I said Grandpa, and then I called you guys. And here you are."

"And here we are." It was needless communication, but Jounouchi didn't know what else to say. "Is, uh, the Pharaoh around?"

Yuugi nodded miserably.

"Well that's something, at least."

"Huh?"

"We'll need him if we're gonna track down this Azarath thing and kick its butt from here to Burkina Faso." Jounouchi fell back on his tested response, clenching a fist and pressing his other hand against his bicep in a display of manly vengeance.

He used to do it all the time when he was in Hirutani's gang, but looking down at Yuugi it seemed the dumbest response in the world. Yuugi wasn't Hirutani. When he looked at him, Jounouchi didn't see a fellow-brawler, ready for action. All he saw was a frightened young man with reddened eyes who looked like he'd just lost his best friend.

Ouch. Bad analogy.

Quickly, Jounouchi dropped his arms.

"Aramanth," Yuugi said quietly.

"What?"

"It said its name was Aramanth."

"Azarath, Aramanth – what's the diff? We're still gonna make it pay for what it did to Anzu." Man, he just couldn't keep his mouth shut, could he? "Uh, and so it doesn't do the same thing to anyone else, too."

"They said there wasn't a scratch on her," Yuugi went on in the same quiet voice. "I told them she'd been stabbed, but they told me I was mistaken. No marks on her chest at all."

"But that's good, right?"

"Hello Jounouchi. Hello Honda." They'd left the door open, and so hadn't heard Grandpa Mutou come in. He stood behind them with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in hand. It was full, but no steam rolled off it. When he followed their gaze he looked surprised to see it, and carefully set it down on a coffee table of magazines covered with the doodles of past occupants.

Yuugi was already on his feet. "What's going on, Grandpa?"

Sugoroku Mutou was a dizzy old man, but he could play the authority figure when he needed to. Faced with three helpless teenagers, he adopted the gruff but kindly demeanour he was wont to when reminded _he_ was the grown up. "Anzu's in surgery, Yuugi. I've talked to as many people as will listen to me, but it boils down to us waiting to hear from the surgeon."

"Surgery?" Jounouchi echoed, thunderstruck. Somehow he'd assumed the damage would be superficial, despite what Yuugi said about solid mist and stabbing; either that or another magically-induced coma like that which had afflicted himself and Mai back in Battle City. "Why does she need freaking surgery?"

Sugoroku moved his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness and apology. "They say there's pressure on her brain. They're trying to fix it. One fellow told me it's like shaken baby syndrome, but it may take time. Anything to do with the brain is complicated."

"But it never touched her head!" Yuugi cried. He thumped the centre of his chest with his fist. "It got her here – right through the heart! They can fix hearts easily – just like they fixed yours, Grandpa."

Grandpa Mutou shook his head sadly. "I can't explain it, Yuugi; I can only tell you what they told me. They mentioned some trauma to the back of her skull; possibly she hit her head on something?"

Yuugi dropped his gaze. "The wall. She hit her head off the wall."

"Anything concerning the brain or spinal cord is tricky, so it may take a while for the surgeon to make sure he's taken into account all the different factors. It just means he's very thorough and good at his job. We have to play the waiting game until she comes out of surgery." He bent his neck, burying the words he didn't say into his beard, but Jounouchi heard them clearly.

_If _she came out of surgery.

Suddenly he saw the waiting room again, this time with perfect, dizzying clarity. The couch legs seemed extra straight, the curtains at the window extra bright. He remembered the last time he saw Anzu, at the school gates. He remembered clearly how he'd picked fault with her overbearing ways and her eyes flashed out a response before her mouth. His senses were sharper than they'd ever been before, and the rush of them made him light-headed until Honda's voice brought him back to himself.

"What blood type is Anzu?"

"What?"

"I'm gonna go donate some blood. I saw a sign on the way in – you can do that, for if people need a transfusion. So what blood type is she?"

"Type O." Of course Yuugi knew Anzu's blood type. Of _course_.

Honda paused. "I'm Type A. Jounouchi?"

Jounouchi thought back to when he donated for Shizuka's operation. Damn. "Type B."

"I'm AB," Yuugi said, and he sounded even more miserable than before, if that was possible.

"I'm Type O," Grandpa Mutou said. "I'll go."

But Honda wasn't so sure. "Not to offend you or anything, but I don't think they let people over a certain age donate. Or those with pacemakers. If Anzu's Type O, then she should be okay. Type O's the most common blood type there is, right? So they should have plenty in storage."

Jounouchi flashed to an image of an empty fridge and Anzu's ashen face, growing steadily greyer, as doctors ran around trying to find blood packets they didn't have. "Sure," he said emphatically. "There'll be loads they can use."

He tried to think positively. They'd been through worse than this. They'd beaten impossible odds before – but then they'd been on their own. Now they were depending on someone else, some guy they didn't even know. This doctor could be anybody, could be nobody, could be having a bad day and not paying attention. Could make a mistake while he had his hands on Anzu and a scalpel ready to cut her open…

Jounouchi shook his head. They'd saved the world, their little group – and they'd done it more than once. That had to rack up some good karma, right?

_So could we please cash in our chips now and use it?_

* * *

Yami was seething.

It was how he dealt with crises: he got angry, bubbled over, and then worked on how to overcome them. Much like Jounouchi, Yami was a doer. Sitting back and waiting for fate to take its course was not something he understood.

What he did understand, however, was that Yuugi was in pain, and that made him even angrier. He couldn't stand that there was nothing he could do to make Yuugi feel immediately better – nothing he could say, no promise he could make that wouldn't sound empty and hollow.

He spent the ride to the hospital cursing himself for not being able to predict, to protect, to _win _when it really counted, but let nothing show. Instead he dedicated himself to soothing Yuugi, even though Yuugi seemed too dazed to listen to Yami's awkward palliatives.

When Jounouchi and Honda arrived Yami was pathetically grateful. He withdrew into the Millennium Puzzle where he couldn't be overheard, letting them comfort his aibou. Then he let the labyrinthine corridors swallow up every profanity he could think of.

During the course of their adventures, through every enemy they'd ever faced, each one of Yami's friends had fallen in some way. Each of them had endured at least one occasion in which he couldn't protect them, for all they championed him as the righter of wrongs, fixer of problems, and defender of the innocent. Pegasus transformed Mokuba Kaiba into a hollow shell; Malik endangered Anzu and all but killed Ryou and Jounouchi; the Big Five stole Honda's body; Raphael sacrificed Yuugi to the Oricalchos; Dartz ripped Seto Kaiba's soul from his body like a still-beating heart … the list went on, and Yami was reminded of all these failures as he considered this fresh letdown.

The creature, Aramanth, had seemed so centred on Yuugi that Yami, too, had focussed almost entirely on his aibou. That focus had left Anzu open to harm – it was _his _fault she'd been hurt. If he hadn't been so protective of just Yuugi …

Yet Yami was bound to have been extra protective of Yuugi after Dartz. It was understandable, for all the good it had done. In hurting Anzu, Aramanth had hurt Yuugi far deeper than any physical wound. This knowledge made Yami clench his jaw and fists and swear bloody vengeance on that spirit, or demon, or whatever it was.

Aramanth's identity concerned him. He didn't like not knowing what he faced; it gave too much opportunity to be blindsided, and after this, there was no way he was going to let Yuugi be hurt more. Neither would he permit harm to come to any of his friends, but with the memory of Yuugi's tears hot on his own cheeks, Yuugi was uppermost in Yami's mind. He would not fail again.

Except in walking through closed doors.

He stared up at the usually-open doorway to Yuugi's Soul Room. Yami couldn't remember ever being barred from here before.

Then again, it had been a while since Yuugi was in this much pain. It made sense he'd want some time alone now. He and Anzu had been friends for a long, long time, and Yami was fully aware of his aibou's crush on her (not that Anzu herself seemed aware of it). Coming so close to losing her had affected Yuugi as badly as seeing Jounouchi lose to Malik during Battle City – and they weren't out of the woods yet.

Yami didn't fully understand modern medicine, but he grasped enough to know that Anzu now faced a battle as difficult and dangerous as the one he promised to bring to Aramanth.

He laid a palm again the door to Yuugi's Soul Room and hoped his aibou could sense he was there.

_Be strong, Yuugi. I swear this will not go unpunished. _

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_She was in her eighties, and her own personal elevator didn't go all the way to the top anymore._

-- Nicked from _Ten Big Ones_ by Janet Evanovich.

"_We'll need him if we're gonna track down this Azarath thing and kick its butt from here to Burkina Faso."_

-- Jounouchi's using a Malapropism here (incorrect use of a word by substituting a similar-sounding word with different meaning). Azarath is actually the fictional dimension where Raven was born in the _Teen Titans_ comics and cartoon. Burkina Faso, for those who want to know, is a nation in West Africa.

"_Type O." _

-- All blood types are correct according to the YGO Bible by Kazuki Takahashi, reproduced on WikiFic: the Ultimate YGO Encyclopedia (www . seventh-star . net / wikific / index . php ? title MainPage).

_Of course Yuugi knew Anzu's blood type. Of course._

-- Seriously, I can see him knowing this sort of thing without even realising how significant the fact of knowing it is. Like Marge Simpson.

* * *


	5. I am a Rock

* * *

**4. I am a Rock**

* * *

**I am a rock.  
I am an island.  
And a rock feels no pain;  
And an island never cries.**

-- From _I am a Rock_ by Simon and Garfunkel.

* * *

Mrs. Mazaki had arrived. Jounouchi recognised her from the few times he'd met or seen her dropping Anzu at Yuugi's place. She was a not-unattractive woman with the same eyes as her daughter, hair cut and clothed in the style of many middle-aged women who'd accepted they were no longer twenty-one and carbs were not their friends. Her two-piece suit was grey and rumpled, her face tight with worry.

"I'm afraid she's still in surgery," Grandpa Mutou was saying. "It's estimated to be another few hours at least."

"My poor baby," Mrs. Mazaki said brokenly, as she was guided to a seat.

She and Anzu had been everything to each other after Anzu's father left when she was ten. Like Honda and his family, they had one of those rock-solid relationships that threw into relief the general fucked-uppishness of his and Yuugi's families. Though distance had emerged between them as teenage-Anzu kept secrets and her mother kept a long-term boyfriend, and their lives were no longer so tightly bound along the same path, their bond was still enough to reduce this capable woman to tears.

Jounouchi didn't remember leaving the room to visit the john, but he must have, because everyone had changed positions and there was a nurse who hadn't been there before.

"Doctor Yamamoto is an excellent surgeon," she said in an effort to make Mrs. Mazaki feel better. "He has an excellent survival rate, and your daughter is young, Mrs. Mazaki. The young are always more resilient."

"She's sixteen years old. She has her whole life ahead of her. How could this happen?"

"Ah…" The nurse looked at Grandpa Mutou as the only other adult in the room. Jounouchi, Honda and Yuugi may as well not have existed.

"There was a mugging and a little skirmish. Apparently Anzu hit her head. The, uh, details are a bit sketchy at this point." Sugoroku studiously avoided his grandson's eye.

If this omission was meant to comfort Mrs. Mazaki it failed – abysmally. She wrapped her arms around herself like she had a stomach pain and bent her head. "Oh God… I-I need to let her father know … he should know … but he's all the way in S-San Francisco and we're all the way over here. What could he do except worry? He'd want to know, but there's nothing he can do. There's nothing _I _can do. And with Omishi away on business I'm the only one, but there's nothing I can d-do. Oh God, Anzu..."

Grandpa Mutou sat and rubbed her back. When the first bulbs of water dripped off her nose he shushed her as one might shush a child – as he must have shushed his own daughter once upon a time. Despite being much shorter and fatter than Mrs. Mazaki, Grandpa Mutou cut an dependable figure that made a lump rise in Jounouchi's own throat.

Jounouchi couldn't predict his mother's actions anymore, but he was certain his own dad would never do anything like that. His father's parting words that evening cut across his brain like wire through cheese, cleaving bits of emotion from the edges to drop onto the floor and writhe embarrassingly.

"_I'll bet you gave her one, didn't you, Katsuya? I'll bet you nailed her good!"_

Someone – some_thing_ – had nailed Anzu, but not in the way Jounouchi's father meant.

Jounouchi felt himself go cold and his heart stop in his chest for a moment. He was so cold he was chattering inside, and he thought, _This is fear_ – debilitating, gut-clenching, sickening _fear_. He was scared, he finally admitted to himself. He could bring out as much bravado as he liked, and act as tough as he needed to, but underneath … he was scared.

Huh. How was that for Hirutani's right hand man? Scared like a baby because some chick he knew was having her brain operated on.

Some chick?

Anzu was many things, but 'some chick' was not one of them.

Honda was rubbing Yuugi's back in a perfect parallel of Grandpa Mutou and Anzu's mother. The nurse gratefully withdrew, and Jounouchi moved out into the corridor to let her pass. However, once she'd trip-trapped away he found he couldn't bring himself to go back into the oppressive atmosphere of the waiting room.

_This is dumb. I should be here, in case word on Anzu comes down_. Good news or bad, he'd never forgive himself if he wasn't there to hear it.

Except that he genuinely couldn't put one foot in front of the other to go back in. It was worse than Shizuka's operation, because at least then he'd had the resolve to stay where he should and force himself not to think about what might happen if things went wrong. Now he'd admitted he was scared it had opened the floodgates, and he knew he was a hairsbreadth away from running into the sunset, just like he'd done with practically every other problem in his life – before Yuugi came on the scene.

_Air_, he decided. _I just need some fresh air to clear my head. Then I'll come back, and I'll stay right here in this room until Anzu can have visitors_._ I won't even leave to pee._

He walked briskly to the elevator, saw it was on the thirteenth floor, and took the stairs instead. Thundering down them felt good; stretching his legs and balancing on one hand to vault over the banister. Landing sent a jolt up his spine. It was a good sort of pain. It told him he was still alive and still able to feel things other than dull shock. He should bring Yuugi to do this, he decided, thinking of the little guy's drawn face and slumped shoulders.

What would it do to Yuugi if Anzu died?

_Don't think about it._

Jounouchi hated himself for chickening out, even if only for five minutes, but he'd be worse than useless if all he did was hang around being antsy. The desire to kick butt suffused him, and that was the last thing Yuugi needed right now – the last thing any of them needed, especially Anzu's mother, who wasn't even allowed to know what had actually happened to her daughter.

It was Mai all over again, except that this time he was _right_ _there_ and he was _still_ useless. What was it about him that invited misfortune on the women in his life? His mother's marriage, Shizuka's eyes, Mai's sanity and Anzu's … life.

It was too surreal because it was so _normal_. Brain surgery – even the words sounded more threatening than 'stolen soul' or 'shadow game'.

There was a threshold of weirdness where you stopped thinking about just how much danger you were in because it was too astronomical for your brain to recognise. That was what allowed you to make rash decisions and jump into impossible battles, because you stopped thinking about how badly the odds were stacked against you. If things were bizarre enough to defy sense and happen in the first place, then why couldn't that bizarreness stretch to a kid with a pack of cards saving the world?

Right now? This crisis fell below that threshold. It was so crushingly _normal_ that it seemed ten times worse than facing off against a serpent that could swallow Tokyo.

What Jounouchi _wanted_ was to discuss what they did next. The problem was he _knew_ what they were supposed to do next and didn't like it. He didn't cope well with sitting on his hands.

He was willing to bet the Pharaoh didn't, either, but would still defer to what Yuugi wanted. They would all defer to what Yuugi wanted, because that was the way things worked – although if you'd told the Jounouchi who hung with Hirutani that someday he'd bow to the directions of a midget gamer, he'd have laughed and possibly escorted you out the door on a steel-capped toe.

The air outside was cool on his face. Evening had coloured the sky a bruised purple, with little apricot clouds scudding by like tugboats dragging the moon into place. Jounouchi took a deep breath. While he didn't feel immediately better, he did feel less nauseous. Having identified the slurping in his gut, he propped up a nearby wall and waited to calm enough to return to his friends.

A part of him really wanted to talk to Shizuka. Though younger than him, Shizuka was already far wiser, and he respected her opinion. She just had a presence that instantly calmed him, smoothing the rougher edges of his brain so his thoughts didn't jump about and leaks out the sides. Talking things over with her always bolstered him. Jounouchi tried to imagine what she would say right now.

"_You need to stay strong, Big Brother,"_ Imaginary-Shizuka told him. _"You need to be the good friend you've learned how to be, and not let yourself be clouded by revenge or settling scores. Just be there for the people who need you the __**way **__they need you to be there for them. Don't let this be Mai all over again."_

Jounouchi smiled. Even Imaginary-Shizuka made him feel better, more confident that he could cope with the problems he faced.

Anzu would be okay. She was in the best place and hands possible, and until she was able to tell them herself, it was up to Jounouchi and his buds to keep the faith. It was up to them to safeguard her mom and be there to greet their friend when she woke up.

_When _she woke up – not _if_.

* * *

"I … I think I need a drink," Mrs. Mazaki whispered.

"Um…" Grandpa Mutou patted his pockets.

"Of water. My tablets…" She fished about in her purse. "I'm supposed to take them in the mornings and evenings. They're for my blood pressure." She laughed bitterly at that. "I really need them after this. Oh -" She fumbled and dropped a packet marked 'Ramipril', which he pushed back into her trembling hands.

"You need to eat before you take these. I was on them for a while after my heart attack."

"I feel like my heart's about to burst right out of my chest."

He eyed her with alarm, but she shook her head.

"Hyperbole. But I do need to take these. This vending machine -" She looked at the monster that dominated the waiting room.

"Doesn't work. I saw one down the hall that serves soup. Or perhaps it would be better to get you something more substantial from the cafeteria."

"I'm fine, I just need some water. I had a sandwich at work."

"And when was that?"

"Lunchtime."

"Which was?"

"… About one o' clock-ish," she admitted.

It was now after six, getting on towards seven. Grandpa Mutou shook his head, but not unkindly. "You need food in your stomach before you take those pills, or they won't do any good. Here, I'll show you where to go." He looked around. "Where did Jounouchi get to?"

"Bathroom break," Honda provided.

"Oh. Right. Well, come along, Mrs. Mazaki -"

"I-I can't leave. What if something happens? I should be here. I have to stay in this room."

"The boys will be here, and we won't be far away. You said yourself; you need to take your pills. You don't want to have a stroke – that wouldn't help matters. It wouldn't help Anzu if she woke up and you were in the bed next to her."

"No. I guess not." She turned huge eyes on Honda, since Yuugi's face was turned away. "You'll run to fetch me if there's any news, won't you? I won't be long, I promise, but just in case…"

Honda saw so much of Anzu in her mother's gaze that a lump caught in his own throat, but he swallowed it stoically. He'd seen Jounouchi appear at the door and vanish again. He didn't begrudge the guy time to get himself together, but someone had to be the rock at times like this. As usual, it looked like the role was falling to him in the midst of a lot of craziness.

"It's okay. I'll be faster than light to find you if anything happens."

Mrs. Mazaki sagged. "Thank you."

And then it was just him and Yuugi.

Having already rubbed him on the back, Honda was all out of ideas. He wasn't great at the whole touchy-feely comfort thing. He wasn't as bad as Jounouchi, whose first impulse was _still_ clenched fists, but there were times Honda honestly didn't know what the hell he was supposed to do next. It was because his self-control was built in at bone level that he'd survived all the preposterous things that happened to them without turning into a raving lunatic.

He and Anzu had that in common. They were the freaks of the group – everybody else was so off the wall it was more unusual to be normal. What could they do, after all? They had no magical powers, and they couldn't really duel. They'd tried a couple of times and it hadn't taken off – he recalled with embarrassing clarity his three-way duel with Otogi and Shizuka. Not his most shining moment. Anzu had faired better in her short duelling history, but her victories were still generally the result of outside help. People wrote them off as cheerleaders because they had no special abilities. When everybody else was off saving the world, Honda and Anzu trailed in their wake, the Haga and Ryuzaki of Good.

Nobody on the outside seemed to understand the part they played in their group's dynamics; because the weirder things got, the more Yuugi and the others _needed_ a dose of normalcy to ground them. Surrounded by craziness, it was easy to forget what sanity looked like – which was where Anzu and Honda came in. She was the heart and he was the common sense.

Great analogy. No wonder he felt so crappy – their group had quite literally suffered a heart attack.

Suddenly Yuugi laughed. "We never even got the groceries."

"Uh…" Response? Not leaping to mind. "Hey, um, you haven't eaten either."

"I'm not hungry."

Honda seized on the topic. "You're gramps is right, dude. Everybody needs food."

"If I eat, I think I might throw up." Yuugi finally met Honda's eyes. "I'm not really acting like a hero, or like someone who helped save the world, am I?"

"There's no blueprint for how to act at a time like this, dude. I'm running on 'what the hell?' myself."

"It was my fault."

"Will you stop that? It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was. Aramanth said it was after me. If it hadn't been for me, Anzu wouldn't have been hurt, and -"

"Hey," Honda interrupted. He looked Yuugi straight in the eye, brushing past the pain there to meet the rest of Yuugi head on. Someone had to be the rock at a time like this. "You listen to me and you listen good: this was _not_ your fault. You did _not_ ask to be attacked by this thing, you did _not_ push Anzu out in front of it, and you did _not_ put her in danger. If she was here right now she'd noogie you until you admitted it." He paused. "Actually, she'd probably noogie me and Jounouchi until you admitted it wasn't your fault. Think of the noogies, Yuugi."

Yuugi looked away. "I don't know what to do. I want to help her, but I'm not sure of the best way to do that. I know Jounouchi and Yami want to chase down Aramanth, and I don't want it to hurt anyone else, but I keep thinking I should be here where Anzu is. And anyway, we don't even know anything about this thing. Where do you start looking for evil black mist?"

"A nuclear power plant?" Honda muttered. Another function he and Anzu filled – veterans of snark. It felt way too weird not hearing a comeback from her. Was _he_ supposed to do the friendship speech now?

It wasn't usually him and Yuugi. Him, Yuugi and Jounouchi, yes; him, Anzu, Yuugi, sure; or other combinations including their sprawling group of friends, but just him and the little guy? Honda tried to remember the last time it'd been the two of them interacting without anyone else around, and couldn't.

"So maybe that's what you can do to help Anzu."

"What?"

"We have favours we could call in, right? How about we get people who know more about monsters and magic than we do to research this Amaranth thing while we stay here at the hospital? They have payphones here, and I have a cell with numbers on it, even if I can't use it with all this equipment around."

Yuugi slowly nodded. "I guess that could work. Do you have the Hawkins' phone number?"

"And Otogi's, and I think I have a line to the museum in Cairo where Ishizu Ishtar works. She's all about the Egyptian magic, but what's to say Aramanth isn't Egyptian? It could be like when Malik possessed people, or something else like that. Or it could be something completely different, and Rebecca and her gramps can clue us in. Any port in a storm, right? If anybody can get to the bottom of this, it's those two geniuses."

Yuugi agreed. "And Kaiba."

Honda paused a beat before responding. "Yeah. And Kaiba."

Yuugi had a degree of faith in that guy he didn't wholly hare, but now wasn't the time to say it. To Honda, Seto Kaiba was a rat bastard whose humanity had been cut out, bagged and cryogenically frozen so he could fill the gap with duelling strategies held together with ego.

"Don't worry." Honda tried for a friendly shoulder-punch. It didn't feel as bizarre as he'd thought it might. Neither did the words coming out his mouth, which rightfully belonged in Anzu's, and that was scarier than scary. "We're strong as a group. Together, we can figure this out. And when Anzu gets better we can tell her all about how we kicked butt and she can be jealous that we got to have fun while she snored and drooled in front of a cute doctor."

Yuugi blinked. "Cute doctor?"

"We'll tell her he was cute."

The barest hint of a smile quirked his mouth – the first in many hours.

The relief Honda felt at the sight of it made him almost fall off his chair.

Which was right when Yuugi _did _fall off his, eyes wide. "No! Jounouchi!"

* * *

_To Be Continued..._

**

* * *

**

_Jounouchi felt himself go cold and his heart stop in his chest for a moment. He was so cold he was chattering inside, and he thought, This is fear – debilitating, gut-clenching, sickening fear._

-- I'm fairly certain this is from a Stephanie Plum novel b Janet Evanovich, but I forget which one.

_Another function he and Anzu filled – veterans of snark._

-- I'm not sure how far this goes in the original Japanese, but in the dub at least I've noticed the heavy sarcasm from these two.

* * *


	6. Where I’m Headed

* * *

**5. Where I'm Headed**

* * *

**Scary thoughts and frightening sounds,  
In my mind still I try avoid it;  
Heading through this hope not one-way alley,  
I can't really sense my surroundings -  
Seems to be all dark around.  
Nothing there, to lighten up my way.  
Honestly don't know where I'll end up at last;  
Won't even count the days.  
One thing I sure know I won't move so fast.  
My mind is complete haze.**

-- From_ Where I'm Headed _by Lene Marlin.

* * *

Jounouchi was thinking it was time to go back inside when he heard it; a terrible yowling, like some animal in pain. It made him pause.

Having been present for many attacks on cats, stray dogs and other wildlife by Hirutani and his gang, Jounouchi could distinguish between the (often melodramatic) groans of injured people and the cry of an animal on the business end of a firecracker – especially since people in _real_ pain didn't make any noise. When a rival gang beat the living crap out of them, he knew that Hirutani's wails were less significant than Hibiki's glassy silence. Hirutani could feel his smashed knuckles. Hibiki's broken ribs had pierced his lung. It was the same for animals, except animals were more honest and didn't threaten you if you ignored them in favour of those more seriously injured.

Some part of Jounouchi's character Yuugi that had ignited made him feel like he ought to make up for these easier wrongdoings against the Animal Kingdom. That part probably thought he could rack up some more karma to spend on Anzu, too.

So it was that he peeled away from the hospital entrance, following the horrible cries and making clicky noises with his tongue.

_Man, what the hell am I going to find? _he wondered, as they showed no signs of abating into whimpers like all the other animals he'd ever seen tortured.

The worst was when Hirutani shoved a lit cigarette up a puppy's nose. It hadn't even opened its eyes yet, but its mother had been taken to a shelter and Hirutani justified himself with a callous, "It won't survive the night anyway." Jounouchi's stomach had turned at the high-pitched squeals, though he kept his poker-face. It was stupid to disapprove of Hirutani.

However, unbeknownst to anyone, afterwards he carried it, concealed in his jacket, to the same shelter as its mother. The woman at the desk looked down her nose, questioning his involvement with her eyes. He escaped quickly and never mentioned it to anyone, but the little grey pup dropped into the centre of his mind as he crept along the hospital wall. Man, he really was getting soft in his retirement.

"Anybody back here?"

He was quite close to the kitchens, where he was pretty sure the general public weren't meant to go. Then again, when had he ever followed the rules to the letter? There had to be some bend in everything, or else what was the point in life?

The stagnant air was saturated with grease and smelled like beer and booze and weed. So much for getting a breath of fresh air. Evidently the kitchen staff used this as their off-the-clock hideaway. Cigarette butts and roll-ups littered the crevice between wall and floor, and Jounouchi was considering going back the way he'd come when the wail set up again.

"Crap," he muttered, too stubborn to let it go.

Just call him Defender of the Defenceless – Anzu would understand. She had a soft spot for small fluffy animals, too. Just look at Yuugi.

"This had better be worth it. The guys'll skin me if I don't go back soon." Not true, but admitting he'd be mad with himself was a step too far right now. He needed to do something active, something hands-on, then he could sit tight and wait for his reward.

The yowling led him past the kitchens, and grew loudest in the crook of a building with blacked out windows – a dead end. There Jounouchi paused, bewildered by the lack of cat to go with the noise.

After years dealing with magical nuttiness, you developed a sixth sense that told you when something was wrong. It flared as Jounouchi stood in the shadows and realised how far away from the main entrance he'd gone. There was nobody around, no sign this building was even in use, and no injured cat.

What there _was_ included a sudden rush of crawly skin along the nape of his neck, and an acrid taste in his throat he'd last had back in Atlantis, with Dartz looming over them like a vengeful god...

"Crap."

"Indeed," whispered a honeyed voice. "Hello, Loyal One."

"Double crap."

The shadow rippled and reached out to grab him. Jounouchi dodged, ducked, and tried to go back the way he'd come, but it blocked his way. He couldn't tell what was ordinary darkness and what was living shadow. Automatically he fell into a boxing stance, lower brain noticing Honda's absence at his flank like a lost limb.

The voice laughed. It was sweet as syrup and seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Loyal One, you are amusing! Comical, humorous, funny. No magic of your own, yet you seek to _challenge_ me. Fight with fists, punches, kicks. Clash, struggle, scrap. Entertaining!"

Jounouchi narrowed his eyes. He had a fair idea what was going on, and cursed himself for playing hero on something so dumb. One thing he'd learned since meeting Yami: never make yourself a target when there were evil forces out to get you. Worrying about Anzu and Yuugi and being so freaking _useless_ had made him careless. "You're Alas-alack, aren't you?"

"Aramanth, Loyal One."

"Whatever. What the hell are you?"

"I am Aramanth. I am no other. No more of my kind. Boo-hoo."

"Sure, you sound real cut up about it."

"Why should I cry? My brethren were mindless, unwitting, unaware. They were but pieces, but I am whole, my own, individual. Without them, I feast. I am Aramanth. Eater of sorrow. Consumer of grief. Devourer of misery."

Jounouchi pointed. "You're the one who put Anzu in the hospital."

The shadows swirled around his hand until he jerked it back. His skin tingled where they'd touched it.

"Faithful One? She feels no pain, no suffering, no woe. Her soul is too far removed for such trivial things."

His head snapped up. "What? You took her soul?"

"Moved it only. Her injuries were a glorious side-effect. Splendid! Magnificent! Marvellous! Innocent One's misery is peaked by threats to his loved ones – removing Faithful One's soul brought twofold what I expected. Two, twice, double. One grief for physical hurt; one for spiritual. I await his discovery of the latter with joy. He will blame himself. Innocent One is a good meal, always providing for me. Such anguish in him, so attached to his precious someones. Delicious."

Jounouchi worked to process what it was saying. "Where did you put Anzu's soul?" If he could worm information out of this thing, and then somehow get away, he could let the others know. Then they could save Anzu and put this sucker away for good, and Jounouchi could prove to himself he wasn't always useless at saving those he cared about.

Not the most detailed plan ever but all he could forge in the seconds he had.

The shadows darted out like flicking tongues, faster than he could register, and snared his wrists. Jounouchi's arms were yanked outwards from his body, and kept his torso rigid until he thought his ribcage might split in two. He grunted in pain.

"Ah, Loyal One, your name is much deserved. I will not tell you where I put Faithful One's soul, but I will show you. And when Innocent One discovers your body, oh, the fresh misery it will cause! You are very precious to him. Valuable, prized, treasured."

"Not if I can help it!" It was an empty threat, of course. He could barely move.

Tendrils of thick, coarse darkness worked their way up his legs, holding them in place too.

_Way to go, genius,_ he cursed. _Some hero you are. First Mai, then Anzu, and now you can't even save yourself. You really __**are**__ useless_.

He yelped, as one wisp coiled around his throat and rose in front of him. It shimmered and took on the consistency of something more solid than mist. It was also very pointy; sharp edges glimmered in the almost non-existent light from the lamp by the kitchen dumpsters. Man, those dumpsters looked further away than they had before.

"Crap!" His voice was a whisper through the stranglehold around his throaneck. Jounouchi struggled so hard to free himself he thought he'd wrenched his shoulder. The pain was blinding, but nothing compared with the jolt that ripped through him as the spearhead of shadow pierced his chest.

He opened his mouth to scream, curse, shout he was sorry he'd messed up – but his throat had seized up.

And then suddenly the pain was gone. The shadows released him and he flopped bonelessly to the ground. Fresh agony forked from his chest, down his arms and legs, and fireworks exploded behind his eyes.

_Am I dead?_

He'd lost his soul before. It didn't feel anything like this. Then, it had been all Mai screaming and rushing green light followed by velvet nothingness. Now he could feel everything just as clearly as usual – clearer, in fact, because pain had a way of sharpening the senses for maximum effect. The brain could try hiding under a rock, but when the pain receptors were working, there was no escape.

Concrete was hard under his cheek. His upper body hurt like hell, and his brain felt like a fruit machine pinging to a halt on three cherries. Tentatively, he sat up, wondering what game Amaranth was playing.

What he saw made his mouth drop open.

Standing with light rolling off him, driving back the shadows, stood –

"Shaadi?"

* * *

Anzu was falling.

And yet … and yet it wasn't like falling at all. It was more like sinking beneath the ocean, sucked down until the spots crowding her vision merged into a mass of black swirls. Yet unlike the ocean, here there was no resistance. Where she should've felt the pressure of water she felt … nothing; not even phantom heaviness.

Anzu was only-semi aware of … everything. The pulsing abyss of red and black in her recent memory had already faded, giving way to colourless mist. She thought she might be floating, but just forming the thought made her tired.

So tired …

She was supposed to be somewhere, she thought groggily. She was supposed to do something … something important … but what? Images swam in and out of focus, shimmering and then slipping away like shoals of fish. She was too big, too slow to catch them, so she just floated and gradually found herself giving in to weariness.

_Yes,_ someone murmured. _Go to sleep. Rest. _

Some part of her insisted she shouldn't, but the rest sat on it. She was worn-out. Even prisoners in jail got to sleep. It was part of their basic human rights.

Prisoners … that word … significant somehow …

_What does it matter? Let your cares go, child. Abandon your worries, your doubts, your fears. Just rest. Resssst._

So hard to think … so tired …

It was quiet and womblike, nice and insulating against the outside world. Her thoughts took longer and longer to come together.

She was supposed to be somewhere, with someone, but she couldn't remember who. Trying to remember hurt. Trying to think about where she was hurt even more. Just plain _thinking _hurt.

The void offered release; a place where she wouldn't _have_ to think and feel and hurt.

_Yesss …_

But -

_Ressst …_

So tired …

A chasm of infinite black yawned before her. Anzu sank further into it, allowing it to swallow her, and the hurting stopped.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *


	7. In the Shadows

* * *

**6. In the Shadows**

* * *

**I've been watching, **

**I've been waiting, **

**In the shadows all this time.**

-- From _In the Shadows_ by The Rasmus.

* * *

Since the attack, Yuugi had been in a fug of grief, guilt and uncertainty. He felt responsible for what had happened to Anzu, which was exacerbated by the strength of his feelings for her – for all his friends, he reminded himself. He told himself he would feel exactly the same way if it had been Jounouchi in his arms in that alley, or Honda he saw fall, or Ryou, Otogi, Shizuka – even Seto or Mokuba Kaiba!

That this time he genuinely couldn't do anything to help Anzu – couldn't fight to recover her soul, couldn't defeat a misguided megalomaniac to help her through her operation, couldn't call on the Heart of the Cards to make her all right again – made things that much worse. It was Battle City all over again, except this time he had no clear opponent like Malik. Even the Aramanth was too nebulous – Aramanth had put her in the hospital, but it hadn't kept her here.

He kept going over the nightmare, unable to get over the feeling it had been an omen. If only he'd understood it, he thought, as Grandpa comforted Mrs. Mazaki and Honda awkwardly tried his hand at the same. Maybe if he'd known his dream was more than just a dream he could've prevented this.

He was so caught up in self-recrimination he failed to consider how he'd even had the dream in the first place, or how Yami hadn't sensed it was a premonition – if that was indeed what it had been.

He appreciated Honda for being there. Honda was solid, just the right side of reliable that he could be the responsible one of their group without being tedious. When Yuugi looked at Anzu or Jounouchi he saw their fire and passion for life. When he looked at Honda he saw that same passion, but wrapped in level-headedness way beyond his years (unless Shizuka and Otogi were involved, of course). You could count on Honda, even when he had no clue what he was doing.

When a repeat of the nightmare seared across Yuugi's mind, he was doubly glad Honda was there. Even though there was no _time_ for it to play out, once again Yuugi saw the unending dark, heard his name called, watched helplessly as blood splashed at his feet and one of his closest friends was taken.

Jounouchi would've freaked, but Honda caught Yuugi before he hit the floor and waited for him to stop shaking before asking what was wrong.

"You shouted for Jounouchi."

Yuugi was breathless. "The dream … I had it again, even though I'm awake, but … but it was wrong – different. It took Jounouchi this time, right in front of me." He swallowed. His throat felt raw.

"It?"

"We have to find him." Yuugi was now more convinced than ever that the dream was a warning. "I think he's in terrible danger."

Honda's grip flexed tighter, but only once. "Aramanth?" It was once again testament to his nature that he could talk so calmly, like he knew if he made a big deal Yuugi would freak out completely.

"Maybe." Yuugi stood on shaky legs and felt Yami at his elbow, all concern and barely concealed fury. Being so close to that kind of emotion did nothing to help Yuugi's ringing head. Unlike when he'd been asleep, this had knocked him for six. He felt like he'd run ten miles with a full army pack.

Honda was already at the door and reaching for the handle.

"Wait! Anzu – Mrs. Mazaki – we can't leave until she and Grandpa get back."

Honda's mouth thinned. "You stay here. I'll look for the idiot who wandered off when there's a murderous spirit on the loose. When we're all back together you can tell us about what other dreams you haven't been mentioning."

"But -" Yuugi started.

"Details later. If nothing else since we started hanging with you, Yuugi, I've learned to trust your intuition. If you say Jounouchi's in trouble, then you can bet your ass he's already knee-deep and needs hauling out of it. But you're right – Anzu needs at least one of us here, and so does her mom. You're best qualified, dude."

Yuugi was forced to admit he didn't want to leave if there was a chance Anzu could die while he was gone. He wouldn't forgive himself if he walked back into the waiting room, only to hear she'd slipped away and he _hadn't been there_.

But Jounouchi was his _best friend_. He couldn't just blurt out a warning and then leave someone else to handle it. Yuugi was torn.

Honda, Mr. Common Sense, saw this and made the decision for him. "Stay. You won't be able to concentrate like this. I'll be back in a jiffy." And he was gone.

Yami was livid. _"If Aramanth attacks, he won't be able to do anything to stop it."_

"He's just fetching Jounouchi …" Yuugi said, but even he didn't believe it. Indecision gnawed the inside of his stomach. Perhaps this was to be the biggest mistake he'd made yet –

The power shorted out, leaving the waiting room in darkness.

"Hello, Innocent One."

Yuugi backed away from where he'd been standing, but stopped almost instantly. He recognised Aramanth's voice, soft and inviting without allying itself to a particular gender. It didn't come from any particular direction, either.

"Get away from here!" Yuugi squared himself, determined not to let this _thing_ get the better of him. It had threatened those he held dearest, and that was not something he was willing to forget just because he was scared.

And he _was_ scared, but not for himself. Somewhere in this building were Anzu and her mother, Jounouchi, Honda and Grandpa, not to mention all the other innocent bystanders – the sick and injured and _their _loved ones – all of them ready victims. The thought of any one of them being hurt made Yuugi's heart and stomach clench. No way was Aramanth going to cause any more trouble for them.

"You leave us alone!"

Aramanth laughed. It was a cruel sound, like girls who flip skirts of nervous classmates and boys who pull wings off flies. "Alone? But would you not hate that, Innocent One? If I left here with your precious someones, left you alone with yourself, would you not hate that? If I left you alone in the dark, in the black, in the shadows…"

_Darkness, someone calling his name, blood hanging in front of him because he couldn't tell floor from shadows– _

Yuugi felt cold all over. "What have you done with Jounouchi?"

"_Only_ Loyal One occupies your thoughts?"

"You'd better not have hurt Honda, either! Or … or Grandpa, or Mrs. Mazaki, or anyone else!"

More laughter. It echoed in the dark room. Outside, Yuugi could hear people rushing by and yelling, and a new thought occurred to him.

"Anzu!" Her operation – the machines she would no doubt be connected up to. If there was no power they wouldn't work, which meant… "You put the power back on, right now!"

"It is flattering that you think I alone caused this, Innocent One. Single-handed, unaccompanied, unaided. You should take some credit for yourself, since you fed me so well."

"What?"

"Had I not come upon you when I did, when your mind was in such turmoil, I might not have had the power for this appearance. Mmm, even now your misery is delicious."

_"Yuugi, change with me, now,"_ Yami commanded. Yuugi could feel him champing at the bit to face off against Aramanth again, already sworn to the fact that this time things would be different.

And then Yuugi could heard Aramanth in that same, strangely close way as before – and somehow this time he didn't just suspect Yami couldn't hear, he knew it. Aramanth's voice spiralled into him as though his mind had been sucked out through a straw and mixed with its presence, then pushed back into his head.

"Do you think she will remember you, Innocent One? Her mind is as broken to bits as her skull – shattered, smashed, crushed. Do you think she will even know who you are? Do you think your face will mean anything to her? Even if she is not soulless, do you think she will be the same Faithful One you knew?"

Yuugi shook his head, trying to dislodge Aramanth's dreadful nearness. He was aware of Yami shouting at him, his shin hitting a coffee table, but uppermost was that insidious mellow voice. The more it talked, the friendlier it sounded. It was almost _comforting,_ like his mother's used to be when he had a nightmare...

_"Yuugi!"_

"Think on my words, Innocent One," Aramanth whispered. And just like that, it was gone.

The lights whirred into life and Yuugi found himself facing his grandfather and Mrs. Mazaki.

"Yuugi!" Grandpa exclaimed from the doorway. "Are you all right? Where did Honda go?"

"Has something happened?" Mrs. Mazaki asked shrilly. "When the power went out all we could think to do was get back to you boys. Are you all right? Has anything happened to Anzu?"

Yuugi sensed Yami prowling and forced down the urge to reveal everything to them.

Once, just after Duellist Kingdom, Anzu made him promise never to tell her parents about magic or the Millennium Items. Her mother had just been diagnosed with exceptionally high blood pressure, and he remembered how Anzu had come to school hollow-eyed.

"She's about this close to having a stroke," she'd said, holding her finger and thumb together. "What with Dad's new girlfriend and her job and me running off without telling her, plus everything else she has to stress over, a big shock like me walking voluntarily into battle against the supernatural … I don't even want to think about what it'd do. She thinks I'm this good little girl who wouldn't even think to jaywalk. I can't do that to her, Yuugi. I just can't. I love my mom. I don't want her to … to …"

And Yuugi had touched her arm and promised never to tell unless she said so.

Looking at Mrs. Mazaki now, he could practically see the blood rushing through her veins. "Honda went to find Jounouchi. We were worried he was taking too long in the bathroom. I stayed here in case … well ..." He didn't need to finish; they all knew in case of what.

"But there's been no word of Anzu?" Mrs. Mazaki pressed.

"No. Nothing."

"But sometimes no news is good news, Meron," said Grandpa Mutou.

Yuugi blinked. He'd never thought of Mrs. Mazaki having a first name, though of course she must. It was one more thing to think about; one tiny piece of a very large muddle of secrets, lies and half-truths between his friends and their parents, all to keep them from learning the truth about their friend, Yuugi Mutou.

"Yeah," he said. "No news is good news."

* * *

Living in Domino in July was like living inside a giant pizza oven: hot, airless, aromatic. Right now Jounouchi could almost believe it was July and he was stuck in an unventilated classroom, instead of sitting on his butt outside a hospital kitchen. Sweat trickled into his collar, he could smell garbage from the dumpsters, and his head pounded, but he forced himself to watch as the iridescent Shaadi approached him. He couldn't blindly trust glowy dudes who appeared from thin air.

"It would appear I arrived just in time."

Jounouchi swallowed. "Dude … you totally just saved my life."

"Not really. Your life was not in jeopardy."

"My soul, then."

Shaadi nodded.

"Aw, man. I was kinda hoping you'd hit me with another 'not really'."

"I apologise that I cannot provide you with your desired response. However, time is of the essence. I would have appeared to the Pharaoh himself, but I sensed your need. Now you must pass on my message."

"Message?" Jounouchi narrowed his eyes, and then stopped because it increased the throbbing in his skull. "You know what's going on?"

"I know a great many things, young man – not all of which you need, or should wish, to learn."

Jounouchi's attention snagged for a second on the 'young man'; not many people ever referred to him that way. 'Young hoodlum' and 'young thug' were about as close as he got.

Then he reasserted himself and concentrated on the moment. Some monster – which had vanished into thin air – had just tried to rip his soul out through his chest and he wanted answers. "Okay, so talk. Do you know the deal with this Aramanth thing?"

"Aramanth? I hadn't realised it was sentient enough to give itself a name."

"I thought you said you know what's going on!"

"Patience, young man. I simply had not realised it had progressed so far. It must have consumed a great amount of fuel to function on more than instinct. This 'Aramanth' you speak of is a creature of shadow that should, if justice were done, have drowned with the rest of Atlantis when the Pharaoh defeated the Oricalchos."

"Hey, I was there too, y'know. What am I, chopped liver?"

For the first time, Jounouchi thought he saw something other than muted disdain on Shaadi's face. It struck him, then, how little any of them actually knew about this guy. Shaadi was one of the tomb keepers sworn to wait for their Pharaoh's return, and above all others, Shaadi alone had been set to guard the Millennium Items.

And a bang up job he'd done, too: besides Yuugi, the Items had messed up everyone they'd ever come into contact with, or landed in the hands of already messed up people. Pegasus, Bakura, Malik – each one had manipulated and hurt others in a quest for power that made Jounouchi's stomach roil. All they needed was for Seto freaking Kaiba to receive an Item and they'd really be screwed. Even Isis Ishtar was a little too calculating for his tastes. Jounouchi preferred honesty. Even as a thug, he'd warned people he was going to hit them.

Yet Shaadi had saved Jounouchi just now, and maybe what he had to say could help Anzu. Aramanth's words burned like tiny flames in Jounouchi's memory. That merited him hearing Shaadi out, right?

The fact that Shaadi held the Millennium Key, which could also make short work of his soul, helped in this decision.

"Why did you save me from Aramanth?"

"Because this creature feeds on misery, and losing you would cause large amounts of it."

"Come again?"

"I was not lying when I said my time was short, young man, so listen carefully. When the Oricalchos first claimed Atlantis it fed on the fears and darkness of the people there, yes?"

"Well, yeah, but we took care of that. It went blammo. I saw it."

Shaadi nodded. "What you face now is not the Oricalchos itself, nor is it as powerful as the forces that spawned it. It is but a phantom created by the longevity of the Oricalchos's hold over Atlantis's king and populace – an afterimage, if you will."

"Say what?"

"Concentrate, please. Your 'Aramanth' -"

"It's not mine!"

"Young man!" Shaadi snapped, briefly giving in to the emotions playing beneath his cool exterior. His face reverted to its blank mask a millisecond later, but Jounouchi had seen that Shaadi was human enough to get irritated with him. Somehow it made him feel better to know this, though he couldn't explain why. "Please refrain from interrupting. You must hear what I have to say if you wish to defeat this threat."

"Sure, but answer me one question first."

"All right; ask your question."

"You're one of those freaky tomb keepers. No offence meant, but the others we've met haven't exactly been playing with a full deck, if you get what I mean. You're supposed to be all about the Millennium Items, and waiting for your Pharaoh to return, but if Aramanth is from Atlantis, then why are you getting involved? And how do you even _know_ about this stuff?"

"I believe that is two questions."

Jounouchi shrugged and ignored the wrench in his chest. "I'm flunking math."

"Indeed. I know of Atlantis because you do. Where the Millennium Items go, so go I."

"Huh?"

"As for why I choose to help you now, if I did not then my Pharaoh may not reach Egypt for another three-thousand years."

"Oh." Jounouchi considered this. "I see your point. So let's get with the helping, 'cause I really want to kick this thing's can and get Anzu's soul back."

"Defeating it may not bring her soul back."

"Say what? It's gotta bring her back! That's the way it works." It was always the way it worked – trounce the bad guy and everything went back to normal, or as normal as their lives ever got.

Shaadi shook his head sadly, but when he spoke his words came faster. "Listen to me now, and mark me well. Aramanth is a phantasm that was unconsciously created by the Oricalchos, fed by the pain and misery from the Atlantean people. There were many such phantasms, but they remained figments and dissolved when the Oricalchos was vanquished and those people freed from its power. Somehow, this one attached itself to you and your companions and so drew its power from you, not those people."

"So when we left Atlantis, it survived and came with us," Jounouchi said, beginning to understand. "If it eats bad feelings, Yami would've made one big target. He was so broken up when he lost Yuugi he made _Malik _look like a happy camper." He chose not to mention how badly _he _was hurting, after seeing what he'd done to Mai and not being able to fix things. Anzu and Honda weren't spectacular, either. Each of them had turned into a ball of all-consuming pain on that 'adventure'; no wonder Aramanth thought they looked tasty. "It probably attached itself to us then, right?"

"Quite possibly. And it has been growing ever since. Now it has apparently consumed enough power to become sentient, and able to manipulate itself to _create_ the misery it needs to survive, instead of waiting for suitable misery to occur of its own accord." Shaadi leaned forward. "It has taken me some time and effort to ascertain these facts, young man, and my strength has been sapped as a result. I need to remain strong for the coming battle, and so I entrust this to you and your companions. Defeat Aramanth to ensure the Pharaoh's safe passage to Egypt."

"Nice to know you care about the rest of us, dude."

"My duty is to my Pharaoh."

"I guessed tha – wait, coming battle? What does that mean?"

However, Shaadi was already fading, the light that had beaten back the shadows dimming before Jounouchi's eyes. Already the darkness was beginning to creep back, and though he couldn't see it moving as Aramanth's mist had, Jounouchi got hastily to his feet. His muscles were stiff and sore, and he caught his breath as fresh aches exploded in his wrists, ankles and chest. Aramanth had really done a number on him.

"It lives in darkness," Shaadi was saying, but his voice sounded echoey, like Jounouchi's used to when he played elephants with Shizuka and old toilet roll tubes. "Remember what you have been charged with, companion to the Pharaoh."

"Why does nobody ever use my name?" Jounouchi watched as Shaadi popped out of existence, forcing him to wonder if he'd even been there in the first place, or just one of those … what were they called? Astral projections? "Why am I even surprised about stuff like that anymore?"

The back of the hospital was lonely and dark. Limping only slightly, Jounouchi beat a hasty retreat to the front entrance, full of more answers and even more questions than before.

* * *

Honda had asked at Reception, and quizzed several pretty and not-so-pretty nurses, and though several thought they remembered someone fitting Jounouchi's description, none of them knew where he was now. A greasy wave of undefined emotion slid through him, so that he completely missed how the receptionist was trying to flirt with him. The feeling only intensified when the lights cut out.

Honda froze where he was as other people stumbled around in the dark. There was no point in getting lost when he just needed to wait for his eyes to adjust, or the back-up generators to kick in – whichever came first.

_Jounouchi, you idiot, where __**are**__ you?_

As if in answer, electricity returned to reveal a familiar figure shuffling through the sliding doors. "Honda? Shouldn't you be upstairs?"

Honda stopped himself from sighing in relief, instead rushing over to punch his friend in the shoulder. It was as close to a relieved hug as they were ever likely to get. "I would be, if certain airheads hadn't run off without telling anyone where they were going."

Jounouchi winced at the punch, even though it was feeble. "Watch the merchandise, dude."

Honda looked at him again. "You look like crap."

"Gee, thanks."

"What happened?"

They both became aware of the eyes and ears all around them.

"Let's get back to the waiting room. I'll tell you on the way."

The receptionist sighed as they entered the elevator together. "Typical. All the best ones are taken, gay, or both."

* * *

"… and that's about the size of it," Jounouchi finished.

He and Honda were some way down the corridor from the waiting room, unwilling to finish their conversation where anyone, especially Mrs. Mazaki, could accidentally overhear. Honda thought she might suspect something anyway, so it was safer if they stayed away a few extra minutes. Yuugi and his grandpa would understand.

Honda's face was grim. "So it's _our_ fault what happened to Anzu."

Jounouchi shook his head. "How were we supposed to know that thing had followed us home? I always imagined a puppy would follow me home, not a soul-stealing death-shadow. Besides, from what Shaadi said, I don't think even the world's biggest Prozac would've kept this thing in check once it latched on."

"I don't suppose he told you _how_ we defeat it."

Jounouchi's expression said it all.

"Didn't think so. And when Aramanth talked to you -"

Jounouchi rubbed at his chest. "'Talk' isn't exactly what happened, but it did go the whole evil villain route – couldn't shut up about its plans and what it was going to do to us. Usually I hate when that happens, but this time I was actually grateful."

"Anything important come up?"

"You might say that. It said it stole Anzu's soul."

"What?" Honda looked around, aware he'd shouted. "What?" he said again, softer this time.

"Well, it said it'd moved it, but it didn't say where to."

"Damn." Honda's fists clenched. "As if putting her in the hospital wasn't bad enough. I don't know how the hell Yuugi's going to take this. He's already a wreck – seriously, I haven't seen him this bad in a long time. Right before I came to get you, he was trying to blame himself for what happened – you know, the way he does."

"And it's only going to get worse when he finds out Aramanth has been feeding on our, to quote Shaadi, 'pain and misery'."

"Yuugi's had plenty of those after what happened to Anzu." Honda shook his head. "So if we don't tell him, he'll just go on feeling bad and trying to blame himself, and Aramanth will get stronger from it. But if we _do_ tell him -"

"Then he feels bad for feeding it, and Aramanth gets stronger from _that_." Jounouchi scowled. "Plus, you just _know_ Yami's gonna feel bad because Yuugi feels bad. He's been beyond protective since we got back from America. Aramanth gets two meals in one. Lose-lose situation all round. I reckon that's why it targeted Anzu, and then me – it's looking for the biggest reaction it can get. It kept talking about 'Innocent One'; any guesses who that might be?"

Honda didn't even hesitate. "Yuugi."

"Bingo. I think it's targeting those who mean the most to him. The more of us it takes out, the worse he feels, the stronger it gets, so the more of us it _can_ take out – yadda yadda yadda."

"Damn."

"You said it."

"So what happens wh- if it finishes with us?"

Jounouchi shrugged. "I'd bet my life savings it comes in the 'Not Good' column."

The insurmountable urge to protect Yuugi, which had sent both of them running into a burning warehouse and the jaws of death, respectively, rose inside them once again. Yuugi was the guy who saved the world, and they were the guys who saved him.

"We've got to figure out a way to hammer this thing before it turns us into an all-you-can-eat buffet."

Jounouchi nodded. "I'm with you, buddy. I'm also open to ideas on how to do it."

Honda thought hard. "Double damn."

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

-- First off, since several people have asked me what the title of this fic means (and since it should be clear why I chose it given the contents of this chapter), I'll explain. Schadenfreude is a German word meaning 'pleasure taken from someone else's misfortune'. It derives from _Schaden_ (damage, harm) and _Freude_ (joy) and has been borrowed by the English language for a variety of reasons, including making English Literature Graduates sound clever at parties.

_Living in Domino in July was like living inside a giant pizza oven: hot, airless, aromatic. _

-- Lifted from _Four to Score_ by Janet Evanovich.

… _couldn't call on the Heart of the Cards to make her all right again …_

-- I know, I know, the Heart of the Cards is a dub invention, but I like the idea of characters having something to call on that symbolises the particular brand of luck needed to win a Duel Monsters game.

"… _and that's about the size of it," Jounouchi finished. _

-- No, this isn't a reference to what the receptionist was thinking. It's actually a side-fling to Granny Weatherwax (one of my all-time favourite characters in any medium) in _Equal Rites_ by Terry Pratchett.

_Jounouchi rubbed at his chest. "'Talk' isn't exactly what happened, but it did go the whole evil villain route – couldn't shut up about its plans and what it was going to do to us. Usually I hate when that happens, but this time I was actually grateful."_

-- Long before Syndrome characterised it as 'monologing' in _The Incredibles_, I had this thought as a child. I would sit, googly-eyed in front of my telly, and in between throwing pillows and less soft objects at my sister, I would wonder why the villain was creating elaborate, easily-escaped traps for the hero, and then not staying to make sure s/he was dead, or wasting time explaining the Grand Master Plan instead of just emptying an automatic rifle into the bugger.

* * *


	8. Ballad of a Broken Man

* * *

**7. Ballad of a Broken Man**

* * *

**I can see what you can see, it's worrying.  
I'm fading my fast towards my last, I'm hurrying.  
I wish that I could pacify the guilt that I feel.**

I know the wrongs this vagabond has done to you.  
I hit rewind, well, every time that tape runs through.  
Your memory is haunting me, and cuts to my bones. 

-- From_ Ballad of a Broken Man _by Duke Special.

* * *

The waiting room was so full of tension it slapped them in the face the moment they opened the door. Honda went first, Jounouchi limping after him, but both paused only a few steps in.

Mrs. Mazaki was crying again. It was the only noise in the small room, but her face wasn't wet. Instead, dry sobs tenderised her insides, as she pressed Grandpa Mutou's hankie ineffectually to her eyes and the man himself rubbed her elbow. He looked up at their entrance, as did Yuugi, and the desperation in Yuugi's eyes was all they needed to see.

"What's happened?" Jounouchi asked, already-painful chest even tighter. "Is Anzu all right? She's not…"

"No, thank goodness," said Grandpa Mutou. "But there have been some complications due to the power outage. Something to do with the anaesthetic and brain waves." He shook his head, like this was all far above him.

They hadn't ever seen Grandpa Mutou crack before – not properly, the way other people cracked. He was the jolly shopkeeper, the cheerful relation who was in on their secret. Even when lying at Seto Kaiba's feet he hadn't broken, nor across a duelling field, nor on the end of a bad connection too far away to help them. Yet now his face was strained, and he kept shooting furtive glances at Yuugi, clearly as concerned about him as Anzu.

"The power outage," Yuugi mouthed. "Aramanth."

"Shit." Jounouchi only just stopped himself from kicking something.

Mrs. Mazaki, thinking his response was due to the news of Anzu, didn't even look up. "She's going to die."

"What?"

"Now, Meron, you mustn't lose hope," said Grandpa Mutou.

"Then she's going to be a vegetable. I just know it. My poor Anzu, my poor little baby girl…" Her eyes were squeezed tight, like a juicer clenched around already-pulped fruit, unable to summon even a single last drop.

It was so different than his own mother's reaction during Shizuka's operation that it gave Jounouchi pause.

Mrs. Kawaii had sat demurely in a chair practically the whole time her daughter was out. She hadn't picked up a magazine like others around her, nor made any calls from the payphone. When Jounouchi used the last of his loose change to buy vending machine food she ate it without difficulty, while he picked listlessly at his. She hadn't cried; hadn't made any pretence at it. Her only concession to sentiment had been yelling at him when he was late, at Shizuka through a closed door, and then finally two thank yous – one when he arrived, the other when they got the all clear. Apart from that she'd been the epitome of reserve, only a slight bleach to her knuckles a sign she was worried.

Yuugi's bleak expression reminded Jounouchi of the need to talk with the little guy. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Uh, Yuugi?"

"Huh?" This fresh blow had obviously addled Yuugi, because he was slow on the uptake. "What is it, Jounouchi?"

"Can we talk to you for a sec?"

"Go ahead."

"In private?"

"Uh, sure. I guess." Yuugi slid off his seat and apologised to his grandfather and Mrs. Mazaki.

Grandpa Mutou just nodded at him. There was a lot to be said for having such an understanding adult in on their secret.

"Will this take long?" Yuugi asked as they gently closed the door behind them.

"Trust me, dude," said Jounouchi, gesturing to where Honda already waited in a little payphone alcove. "You need to hear this."

* * *

Yami listened with growing impatience, as Jounouchi and Honda related what had happened and what they knew of Aramanth. They kept their voices low, constantly watching and falling silent when nurses, doctors and other people rushed past. Each pause had Yami taping his foot, though neither of them could see him and appreciate this.

The more he learned of this new enemy, the more his fury banked and swirled and fed on itself. It made him bristle and bubble, until he could barely contain himself. After helplessly enduring news of Anzu's deteriorating condition, to now learn that her body didn't even house her soul anymore – it was inexcusable! And Jounouchi also being attacked …

The only thing that got to Yami more than these events was Aramanth's obvious interest in his aibou. _That _had him snapping into Yuugi's ear, _"Aibou, you are going to mind-swap with me, and you are going to do it now."_

Yuugi winced but stayed where he was, listening as Honda and Jounouchi came to a close.

"So this really _is_ all my fault."

"Yuugi, you're my best pal, but I swear, if you start any of that martyrdom crap and I'm gonna rip out your hair and stab you with it."

Honda turned to Jounouchi. "Dude!"

"And I mean that in the nicest, most concerned-best-friend way." Jounouchi caught Honda's disapproving look and shrugged. "What? I just got munched on by Oricalchos poop. I got a right to be cranky."

"Oricalchos _poop_?"

"Shaadi said it was the nasty stuff it left behind, which sounds like poop to me."

Honda blinked. "Man, your brain must be a scary place to live. You could wander for miles and not meet an intelligent thought."

"Why you -" Jounouchi pounced and wrapped an arm around Honda's neck, forcing one arm behind his backing a half-nelson. "Say uncle!"

"Nyark! Dude, I don't think this is the right time!"

Jounouchi looked over at Yuugi, and his attempt to recapture some normalcy died. He sighed and let go, sliding to his feet. "Sorry. Things are just so doomy and gloomy, I was getting antsy, and I act stupid when I'm antsy. Honda, if you say 'we noticed' I'm gonna rip off _your_ hair and ram it right up your -"

"Let me get this straight," Yuugi cut in.

Both boys fell silent and looked at him.

"Aramanth was born out of the Oricalchos," Yuugi went of softly, "and when we defeated Dartz it followed us home."

Jounouchi nodded. "Yup."

"And since then it's been feeding on bad feelings and fears and unhappiness, getting stronger and stronger, and growing a mind of its own – I mean, learning to think for itself?"

"You got it."

"And it's now using that mind to _create_ the misery it needs to survive," said Honda. "Or at least engineer situations that lead to trouble for us, but the end result is the same."

"And then it gets even stronger!" Jounouchi rubbed absently at his chest beneath his shirt.

They were still all in their school uniforms, lending the scene an implausible air – fighting evil spirits was one thing, but you weren't meant to do it in shirts that badly needed ironing, or with ink stains on your fingers. Yami was suddenly struck by how _young_ they all were. They'd always been young, but somehow it never seemed as significant as it did right now.

Yuugi bowed his eyes. "Then it _is_ my fault."

"Yuugi -"

"No, really. I've been so worried about going to Egypt and seeing Malik and Isis, and where Mai and Bakura are, and graduating from school, not to mention finals and … some other stuff -"

Yami sensed an image of Anzu coalescing in Yuugi's back-brain. He narrowed his eyes, but let it go in favour of soothing his aibou. Right now Yuugi's muddled feelings for his friend weren't as important as making sure that friend survived the night – and that they did.

Besides which, he'd caught the implication of Jounouchi and Honda's tale. Aramanth fed on misery, but had been attracted to them in Atlantis because of Yami's own feelings. He'd been desolate without Yuugi, far worse at hiding or overcoming it than their friends, so it _must_ have been him that ensnared this monster.

He recognised the same desolation he'd felt then in Yuugi now. Loss welled inside him, barely contained; an aching, wailing pain that would not stop. If Aramanth consumed pain then Yuugi was a beacon drawing it to him.

"– I must've been feeding it all this time," Yuugi was saying. "If what you say is true, then Aramanth is here because of me. It makes sense: why else would it be following me around? It was there in the alley, and then when the power went out it spoke to me again in the waiting room. I think it was sending me bad dreams, playing with me – telling me what it planned to do next because there was nothing I could do to stop it. It'd be an easy way of making me feel bad so it could … eat," he said, grimacing at the idea of his thoughts and feelings being consumed like rice, "so it could grow stronger. Only now those dreams aren't enough. It's _me _and _my _bad feelings it's after."

"_Aibou…"_

"I _said_ you worry too much, Yuugi," Jounouchi said without malice. "But when I said it's not healthy, this isn't what I meant."

"It spoke to you again?" Honda was thoughtful. "And it deliberately tempted Jounouchi away from the light sources. That would explain what Shaadi meant about it living in darkness. It's not a metaphor – it really does need darkness to survive, which would be why it let _you_ go, Jounouchi, when Shaadi turned up and pulled his nightlight trick."

"And never have I been happier to have a nightlight," Jounouchi declared.

"Which gives us the advantage."

"Wait - it does?"

"Sure it does."

"Uh, I don't if you'd noticed, dude, but it's dark outside and this thing's already proved it can turn off the power to this building if it feels like it. We can't leave because of Anzu, but if we don't leave, we're sitting ducks for it to pick off. And Shaadi isn't coming back anytime soon. I'm too young to play zombie movie stakeout!"

"True, but a big hospital like this has to have storerooms, right? And if there are storerooms, there are bound to be some torches we can use to beat it back if it tries to attack us again, or if it tries to get at Yuugi. It doesn't like light, ergo, we get ourselves some light. What exactly did it say to you, Yuugi?" Honda looked at him.

Yuugi recounted Aramanth's words. Yami was surprised.

"_I didn't hear it say that_."

Honda nodded. "That just proves my point – it's trying to wring every scrap of pain it can from what happened to Anzu, probably because it missed out on getting your soul too, Jounouchi. It went straight to Yuugi after losing you, and stirred up some more pain from him to feed on. And what better way to do it then put doubts in his head about Anzu?"

Yuugi's heart punched his ribcage. Yami felt it as if it were his own.

"If it's centred on Yuugi as the best source of fuel, it stands to reason it'll focus on getting to him so it can absorb that fuel. If we cut it off from its fuel source, it'll get hungry and perhaps do something stupid, and then we can strike and take it out. So if and when it tries something, only this time we'll be ready to drive it away again."

Jounouchi frowned. "With torches? I'd prefer a lightsaber. I'd feel safer with a lightsaber."

"You'd _be_ safer without me around," Yuugi declared, turning on his heel.

A hand landed on each of his shoulders.

"You're not going anywhere," said Jounouchi.

"Yeah," Honda agreed. "We're hereby nominating each other as your personal bodyguards against evil shadow-beasts."

Jounouchi looked at him. "You mean Oricalchos poop."

"Dude, I'm not calling it Oricalchos poop."

Yuugi pulled away from them. "You're being ridiculous. You can't fight Aramanth! You don't even know if shining a light at it will do any good; and if it doesn't, what then? You lose your souls. No." He shook his head. "I won't let that happen. It's safer for everyone if I just leave. It won't try to attack you if it knows I don't know about it. I'd have to know to feel bad."

"Being a hermit won't solve anything." Jounouchi folded his arms. "You were the one who taught me never to run away from my problems, Yuugi."

"This is different."

"Still looks like you running, to me. Besides, what about Anzu?"

Yuugi said nothing, but Yami felt the words catch in his throat. Yes; what about Anzu?

He knew, as they all did, that as long as she was here, her life suspended on such a slender thread, Yuugi could not leave. He may get all the way to the door, or even out onto the street, but the thought of her dying without him there would ultimately drive him back to her side. His feelings for her were the world's worst kept secret – not that Anzu exhibited any knowledge of them. Girls were supposed to be more receptive to matters of the heart, but as far as Yami could see, girls were even blinder when it came to matters of their own.

When Yuugi had spent nearly a whole minute saying nothing, Jounouchi broke the silence. "Yuugi, we're your friends. This is usually the time when Anzu gets out one of her speeches, but she can't right now, and we need to make sure the thing that hurt her can't hurt anyone else."

"Like _you_." Yuugi's voice was thick. Yami tasted salt. Sometimes it felt like they'd never separated at all. "You're making me choose between you and her." His voice was a choked whisper. "Please don't make me choose."

"We're not leaving and neither are you. If Aramanth thinks it can use you as a smorgasbord, it's got another thing coming. And that thing has alkaline batteries to burn."

"But -"

"Stop arguing. If you run away, there's no guarantee it won't find you, or if it can't find you it might go after someone else and cause _them _all sorts of misery instead."

"But what can we _do_?" Yuugi burst out. "All we know is it doesn't like the light! We don't know where it is, we don't know who it's going to strike at next, or how – we don't even know how powerful it is now!"

"What does Yami say?" Honda cut in.

_Finally_. Yami took the opportunity to snag Yuugi's attention and wedge open their mindlink to make sure he was heard. _"I say we fight it. I want you safe, aibou, but I want our friends safe as well, and neither can be achieved while this creature is still at large."_

Yuugi repeated this word for word. "But you're all forgetting one vital thing," he added.

Jounouchi blinked. "What? That we outnumber it, or that it outguns us?"

"No. That we're in a hospital. There are more sick people here than just Anzu. This is no place for a fight."

"I see your point." Honda thought for a moment. "I guess we could try tempting Aramanth into the grounds. It's been out there before, so maybe it'll try something again if we lay a trap. It's dark enough out there if you stay away from streetlamps …"

"I claim dibs not being bait!" proclaimed Jounouchi.

"Nobody's being bait. It's too risky." On this, Yuugi was firm. "I may not be able to stop you from throwing yourself into danger because of me, but I can stop you from doing it recklessly. If we can't stop it in time, there's too much chance of Aramanth taking the soul of anyone who plays bait."

"_So what are we supposed to do?"_ Yami wanted to know. _"Wait until it strikes and watch it suck your feelings out of you?" _He felt responsible for putting Yuugi in this position. If he'd kept better track of his own emotions in Atlantis, they wouldn't have to make these decisions.

"I … I don't know!" Yuugi pressed his hands against the sides of his head. "I need to think. We don't even know what's happening with Anzu yet … whether she's going to be okay … and we're expected to make choices that could mean … that could mean …"

Jounouchi crossed the space between them and dropped to one knee. "Yuugi, chill," he said, far more compassionately than anyone who'd known his early career would've guessed him capable of. "We'll deal. It's what we're good at. We've never had the odds stacked in our favour before, so why should we start now? We'll make it through – _all_ of us."

"You can't be sure of that."

"Who says?"

"That's not how the world works."

"Screw the world. We have magic. You're telling me Yami's got nothing in his bag of tricks we can use?"

Yuugi's focus shifted to Yami like a telescope panning across open sea.

Yami had been wondering this since their first tussle with Aramanth, when he'd brandished the Dark Magician card like a blunt sword. He hadn't had time, or known enough about their opponent to try invoking a Shadow Game, but after sitting in the Puzzle and considering other options, this was what he wanted to do.

He hadn't called on a Shadow Game of his own in a long time. Mostly he now duelled in reality, bound by the same rules as everyone else. Games had become a source of fun and challenge since he gained enough sentience to be more than just some vengeful spirit, blindly punishing wrongdoers without deliberation or mercy. When Yugi first solved the Puzzle, games were only a means to an end, as they had remained for Malik, Bakura and Dartz's troops. However, even though he rarely enacted his own Shadow Games, that wasn't to say Yami _couldn't_. He still had powerful magic at his disposal, held in check only by his mushrooming integrity.

If he could trap Aramanth in a Shadow Game, then perhaps the odds would finally fall in their favour. In a Shadow Game, Yami truly was king, and could manipulate Aramanth into sealing itself away in the Shadow Realm where creatures of darkness belonged. It was worth a try, even if Yuugi's initial reaction was a flare of alarm.

"_I can control my darker impulses, aibou. Exposure to the Shadow Realm will not turn me into a monster."_

_That's not what I was worried about_, Yuugi silently replied. _I was worried about you being hurt if you pull Aramanth into the shadows with you._

Yami was touched by the concern, but resolute. In a Shadow Game he was master. Aramanth would lose the advantage it held in reality, therefore it was, to Yami, the most obvious path to defeating it.

Honda and Jounouchi agreed.

"If he says he can handle it, then I trust him," Jounouchi said without hesitation.

"Yeah," Honda added, though with slightly less conviction. He'd seen Yami's final battle against Dartz, at least in part; and Honda was the sensible one. He was the one who weighed things up, thought about the pros and cons and made informed decisions, while Jounouchi ran off and escaped disaster by the skin of his teeth. "Can we speak to him, Yuugi?"

Yuugi nodded, and Yami felt the immediate rush that preceded his acceptance of the invitation to take control. He was always struck by the openness of this exchange – Yuugi never held anything back, he just laid himself wide open and trusted Yami would be honourable. Even when Yami was just a ball of writhing vengeance and had given no cause to think this, Yuugi had still offered up his own skin to share. It was the way he was with everyone, and those who recognised how special he was appreciated this sincerity more than gold dust.

People as genuine as Yuugi were a rarity – people who walked the fine line between innocence and ignorance, trusted as easily as breathing, put themselves completely at the mercy of others and inspired decency because of it. Most who tried were just taken advantage of, but Yuugi _forced_ you to be better than you were by being totally and utterly true to himself.

Yet as Yami slipped out of the Puzzle there arose a commotion from down the corridor.

The three boys and one spirit turned to look at the waiting room door, which banged open and shut once, but not wide enough for anyone to pass through. After a few moments it opened again, more sedately. Grandpa Mutou stuck his head out. He looked up and down the corridor until he spotted them.

"Would you boys mind coming back in for a minute?"

"Is everything all right, Grandpa?" Yuugi asked, already complying. Yami fell back to watch from a distance.

"Mrs. Mazaki would just like a word."

"I didn't see anyone come in here," said Honda, "so I'm guessing this isn't because you've had news of Anzu."

"No, we haven't heard anything. But, uh, it _is_ to do with Anzu."

"'Scuse me, Gramps?" Jounouchi was the last to enter, but the first to pull up as a finger jabbed into his face. "Whoa!"

"All right, spit it out," Mrs. Mazaki said with uncharacteristic harshness. "You three have been acting strangely ever since I got here – sneaking out, keeping secrets, going to the bathroom and coming back covered in cuts and bruises. It's not normal behaviour and I smell a rat – three rats. You know something."

"Mrs. Mazaki, I think you need to calm down," Jounouchi started.

"Don't you tell me to calm down, Katsuya Jounouchi. I'm a hairsbreadth from the edge, and you do _not _want to push me over it."

Everybody could see she was serious. Her lips were pulled back in a rictus that might have been a snarl, were it not for her tomato-red nose and puffy eyes. It was more like seeing a swan suddenly stretch out is neck and lunge, snapping, at the nearest available target. The gracefulness and beauty were still plain, but channelled into something so alien it was hard to reconcile the two.

"It's been this way for months," Mrs. Mazaki went on. "Anzu thought I didn't realise, but I was just so happy she seemed more content at school. I ignored the sneaking around, even though I knew something was going on that she didn't want to tell me about. I know that you know what really happened to her, and I want you to tell me – right now!"

"Uh…" Jounouchi fumbled.

She rounded on Honda. "Is it drugs? Is that what you kids have been up to?"

"What? No!" Honda was aghast.

"Sex, then." Back to Jounouchi. "Is this about sex? I know you; you used to be a gang member. That was one of the few things Anzu _did _tell me – and if that's what she _did_ then how bad are the things she _didn't _mention? Did you sleep with her? Is that it? Did your old gangmates catch her? Did they rough her up? Did they settle old scores with you by taking it out on her?" She punctuated every suggestion with a jab to his chest.

Jounouchi obviously didn't know where to look. He was backed up against the door, which he'd kicked closed behind him. His elbows pressed against the wood, working their way up, and he rose onto his toes to get away from this woman and her prodding finger. "It's nothing like that! Honest!"

"Liar!"

"Honest, Mrs. Mazaki, I'm not lying. I haven't had any contact with Hirutani in months, and he'd never be so stupid as to try anything with Anzu."

"But you _are _sleeping with her."

He shook his head so much Yami thought it might twist right off his shoulders like a bottle cap.

"How about you?" Honda found himself on the receiving end of her wrath. Months of bottled up frustration had come to the surface – far more than anybody, possibly even Anzu, knew her mother had been harbouring. Now, with her daughter injured and possibly dying, Meron Mazaki's feelings had boiled inside her until she could no longer suppress them. Her Easygoing Mom exterior had cracked and she wanted answers.

Unfortunately, not one of them knew how to tell her the truth – and definitely not The Truth. It was one thing to tell your grandfather about magic game cards and ancient spirits when he was an ex-archaeologist who had a history with Duel Monsters. It was quite another to tell a distraught mother whose only exposure to magic was a turn in her high school talent show, when she squeezed into a sequined dress to complement Miyuki the Magnificent.

Suddenly all the air seemed to have been sucked from the room. Honda looked nothing like the sensible one who weight pros and cons. He looked like someone caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Yami, Yuugi, Jounouchi and Grandpa Mutou all recognised that the guilt on his face was for the Egyptian-flavoured secrets they'd been keeping, but Mrs. Mazaki didn't. She'd put two and two together to get seven, and Honda's face was all she needed to confirm it.

"I knew it! I just knew it. So what happened? Did you get too rough with her?"

"N-no, ma'am! It's not like that -"

"You be quiet. You've already done enough damage." She pinched at the spot between her eyes, breathing through her nose. "I can't believe this. I can't believe she kept this from me. Please tell me you've at least been taking precautions."

"No, Mrs, Mazaki! Wait, I mean -"

"I can't believe this! You irresponsible … negligent … _augh!_"

She hadn't even tried accusing Yuugi, which, perversely, Yami found vaguely insulting. Was his aibou not good enough to sleep with her precious daughter? Was he somehow too inferior to register on her radar?

Grandpa Mutou had stood with his hand on Yuugi's shoulder as if to shield him from Mrs. Mazaki's attack. Now he moved forward, both hands raised placatingly. "Meron, please calm down and think rationally -"

"I've had enough of being rational, Sugoroku. I've spent months rationalising away Anzu's strange behaviour – running off to that Duel Kingdom thing without telling me, not to mention going to San Francisco to 'visit her father' and then staying for all of five minutes, when I _know_ how much she misses and wants to see him. Staying out late, wearing long sleeves to cover friction burns on her wrists, thinking I wouldn't _notice _her picking at her food and staring out the window at dinner like she'd rather be anywhere but with me – it all adds up. Only I was too stupid to realise it. I wanted to believe it was all innocent and to do with that silly card game Yuugi's so good at. But that was all a cover-up, and I can see it now."

"Meron, your blood pressure -"

She barked an extremely rude word that made him take a step backwards. Pain and anger fizzed from her so much they could practically see sparks effervescing from her hair and skin.

"I've had my fill of being reasonable! Now I'm going to be emotional!"

As if on cue, the light bulb exploded, plunging the room into darkness.

At the same moment the windows shattered inwards and something that felt like a rushing wind blasted into the waiting room.

Thick shards of glass flew at everyone. Mrs. Mazaki screamed. Yami heard Grandpa stumble and fall, and Jounouchi and Honda yelling, "Now! Now! Do it now!"

"_Aibou!" _Yami bellowed. There was no time for finesse, as he took up his place at the helm of Yuugi's body and turned the full force of his fury on the thing that could only be Aramanth, drawn like iron filings to a magnet by the intensity of Meron Mazaki's misery.

_Wait!_ Yuugi was protesting. _We're not ready yet! _

"_There's no time! If we don't strike now, then we lose someone in this room."_

Yuugi shifted, though Yami felt his reluctance and apprehension like a thorny hedge he had to pass through.

Yami called on the shadows before he could think, working on instinct to enfold them around him in the boundaries of a game older than memory. Things stirred in the dark, awakened by the invocation, though they could do nothing but swirl in the depths of the Shadow Realm, awaiting their chance to strike at whatever fool broke the rules first.

"Aramanth!" Yami shouted above the wind. "I challenge you to a Shadow Game!"

Aramanth's mocking laughter filled the air. "I told you once before that I do not follow your rules, Ancient One. I was born of magic far older and greater than your petty games."

Yami's senses skimmed over the corners of the field he'd created, sealing fissures and shutting them in. "You don't have a choice. The field is already set. You're trapped unless you win the Game."

"You think I cannot break free from your restraints? Silly Ancient One. Silly, silly Ancient One."

"Do you refuse?"

The Realm creatures salivated mist the colour of freshly spilled blood. Yami could smell their desire and taste their malevolence like rancid milk in the back of his throat. Keeping them back was like clenching a muscle. He was reminded of why he'd abandoned the Shadow Games to Bakura and his ilk – the more time Yami spent with Yuugi and his friends, the less stomach he had for this sort of magic.

Aramanth sighed. "Fine, I shan't leave. Depart, abscond, withdraw. But I shall not play by your rules, Ancient One. I came to feed on the delicious misery I sensed inside this room, and I shall do so."

"I've sealed us in, Aramanth. Mrs. Mazaki is outside the Game. It's just you and me now."

"Not so, Ancient One. There is one other."

Yami realised in a flash what he meant. _Yuugi!_

Too late. Something arrowed towards him. Instinctively Yami raised his arms to protect his face, throwing up a bank of shadows as a shield.

Aramanth passed through them like they were nothing. It hit the Millennium Puzzle square on its elaborate eye motif … and kept on going, _into_ the Puzzle.

Yami experienced a sensation akin to the rug being pulled away while he was still standing on it. He'd sensed such a thing only once before, and the memory seared through him like lemon juice in milk. He bolted down the mindlink, but was only in time to feel Yuugi slip away from him, like a hand his fingertips brushed without getting a proper grip.

"_Yami!"_

Just that thin cry – and then Yuugi was gone.

Pain corroded Yami's insides and turned his brain inside out and rightside in again. He was blinded by it. His control of the shadows wavered. "Yuugi!" he screamed. "Aibou, no!"

But both Yuugi and Aramanth were gone. The rules had been broken, but a soul had been claimed in forfeit, and so by his own rules Yami could end the Shadow Game he'd invoked. He did so. He did so, unable to maintain control.

When the darkness cleared the light from the streetlamp outside seemed inordinately bright. Jounouchi and Honda's faces were nonetheless ghoulish in the glow as they advanced.

Yami was on his hands and knees, breath ragged and eyes wide. He felt numb.

It had happened again.

He'd lost his aibou's soul _again_.

"Yuugi!" he shouted, as though it would bring him back.

"Yuugi?" Honda blinked. "But … I thought Aramanth needed one of _us_ so it could feed on _Yuugi_."

"It took him." Yami cursed in languages they couldn't understand. "I _let it_ take him. I should have known – I should have guessed - "

"But it needed him to feed on. It shouldn't have taken _his _soul."

"Unless it changed its plans." Jounouchi punched his own thigh in frustration. "Crap on a raft! We're always one step behind this freaking thing."

"Wh-wh…" Mrs. Mazaki stuttered, obviously terrified. "Wh-what ... what _was _that thing?"

Yet Yami was deaf to all this. All he knew was the empty space, like the still-warm hollow in a mattress, where Yuugi's soul had been. His head dropped to conceal the wteness beneath his eyes.

"Aibou…" he whispered.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_Mrs. Kawaii had sat demurely in a chair practically the whole time her daughter was out._

-- Right, now, I'm not entirely sure of the official view on this, but my interpretation is that Jounouchi and Shizuka's mother reverted to her given name (Kawaii) when she divorced their father, but kept the 'Mrs.' Prefix so her daughter wouldn't have to deal with awkward questions at school and suchlike, and also because ... well I always imagine her as slightly obsessed with what other people think. That might explain how and why she could leave her son behind when she left - he didn't fit into her 'version' of the world. I've always felt she was rather callous to do that, however nice she might be in other ways.

"_Yuugi, you're my best pal, but I swear, if you start any of that martyrdom crap and I'm gonna rip out your hair and stab you with it."_

-- Taken in part from a _Gargoyles_ fanfics by one of my favourite fanauthors ever, Allaine (FFN id: 112267), although the original quote involved stabbing a fairy with his own pointy ears.

"_Screw the world. We have magic."_

-- Big fat _YGO: The Abridged Series_ sidefling.

_It was more like seeing a swan suddenly stretch out is neck and lunge, snapping, at the nearest available target. The gracefulness and beauty were still plain, but channelled into something so alien it was hard to reconcile the two._

-- Swans are actually nasty, vicious blighters – especially the cobs. Many times I've gone to feed the ducks and found dead moorhens and ducklings because the male swan broke their necks. Nope, no love of swans here.

" … _wearing long sleeves to cover friction burns on her wrists …"_

-- Referring to when she was manacled to a chair during Battle City here. Those things gotta leave a mark.

* * *


	9. Saving Me

* * *

**8. Saving Me**

* * *

**Prison gates won't open up for me;  
On these hands and knees I'm crawling.  
Oh, I reach for you.  
Well I'm terrified of these four walls;  
These iron bars can't hold my soul in.  
All I need is you.  
"Come, please!" I'm calling.  
And oh, I scream for you!  
"Hurry, I'm falling." **

**I'm falling!**

-- From _Saving Me _by Nickelback.

* * *

Yuugi recognised his Soul Room as he landed amongst the toys and scattered them. Here, he was far more corporeal than when hovering over Yami's shoulder; here he was realer than he was in reality.

Here, things that happened stayed happened.

He sat up, feeling oily where Aramanth had grabbed and dragged him into the Puzzle. He didn't usually feel anything physical when he was in spirit-form, but, again, Soul Room. His shoulders felt like they'd been grabbed and his neck felt like he'd been shaken, the way a terrier shakes a rabbit.

How the heck had Aramanth brought him here? It was impossible for it to have gained access to his Soul Room without the Millennium Key, and yet here they were. The sandstone walls were as familiar breathing.

He couldn't explain how his Soul Room had become so linked with the Millennium Puzzle. Maybe it had always looked this way and he just hadn't been aware enough to recognise it, but somehow he doubted that. Still, his Room must have existed before he solved the Puzzle, and yet every time he came here he knew the walls were of the same stone as the maze that had confounded even Shaadi, and that if he opened the door he would come face to face with Yami's domain …

Yuugi glanced at the door. It was shut tight. Something like smoke churned in front of it, blocking his path.

Yuugi scrambled to his feet. "Aramanth!"

"Yes, Innocent One?" The voice was ridged with a spiky chuckle.

"How - Why did you bring me here?"

"Is this not your home, your residence, your place of origin?"

"What are you planning?"

"Me? Plans are your field, little deceiver. Did you not just stand making plans against me? Did you not just parley with Loyal One and Reliable One to orchestrate my defeat, downfall, destruction?"

Yuugi's eyes widened. "How did you -"

"You chose an alcove to speak in. there are many shadows in alcoves, and Wise One already informed Loyal One that shadows are my province. Yet even after he explained this to you, not once did you look up and see me there. I was almost disappointed, upset, offended."

Yuugi thought back and cursed himself for not thinking. Of _course_ Aramanth had been watching them. Where else would it have been at that moment, except lying in wait to make its next move?

"Your friends, comrades, companions plan to eradicate me. Foolish, but irritating. True, I am a creature of shadow, but their paltry efforts cannot stop me. I have grown too much, eaten too much; I am beyond torches and pinpricks of light. Still, you have been delicious, Innocent One, but there are far less troublesome meals in this beautiful world. I thank you and Ancient One for bringing me here. I never imagined there was life beyond the limits of Atlantis, or that there could be such misery in it. From the smallest to the greatest, all nurse their secrets woes and each is spiced with such anguish to discover and savour. This modern world fosters such despair in its people and makes little effort to alleviate the things that trouble them. In old Atlantis people looked after their brethren. Life was hard, but equal. Here, people pass by on the street and pretend not to see. Those in power stand on those in misery to reach even higher heights instead of caring for them. I shall never starve, go hungry, be unfulfilled here, though I have learned to keep myself hidden in future. I do not wish for more bothersome departures such as this."

"No! I won't let you do this to other people!"

Aramanth curled towards him. It was still just mist, but those curls looked almost like fingers – or claws.

Yuugi backed away.

Aramanth laughed. It sounded like a cat yowling in pain. "You are not in a position to stop me, Innocent One. I know you. I know you have no magic to call your own. Separated from Ancient One, you a vulnerable, weak, helpless."

It came closer, and Yuugi took another step back.

"And you are scared. You fear for the others whose lives I shall touch, for your companions, and for yourself. You fear for Faithful One, that she may live or die. You fear for Loyal One, that he will remain directionless and squander his life. You fear for Reliable One, that he will forever remain unacknowledged in the shadow of others. You fear for Old One, that his weak heart will burst. And you fear for Ancient One, that he will never discover the answers he seeks; or that he _will_, and that he will leave you."

Yuugi's eyes were wide. "H-how do you know all that?" He'd never told anyone any of his private fears.

"Silly, silly Innocent One. I know because you have played host for me since you brought me to this world. Your mind has nurtured me. Your doubts uncertainties, worries, have nourished me. You fear for your precious someones, and that fear feeds me. Mmm, scrumptious. You gave me a place of refuge. I am what I am because of _you_."

And suddenly Yuugi understood – he understood where Aramanth had been hiding, how it had known who to target, how it had stirred his emotions with those horrible nightmares and spoken to him directly, without Yami being able to hear. It hadn't just been following him around. "You've been inside me. You've been," his eyes darted left and right, "here. Hiding in my Soul Room."

Mist couldn't smile. It _couldn't_."At last you realise. You and your precious someones were so focussed on where I would strike next, you neglected where I would strike _from._ This place has been the perfect sanctuary. Who would strike against Innocent One, the hero, champion, pure one beyond reproach?"

"You've been here this whole time!"

"Galling, is it not? It is you, Innocent One, who harboured me. It is you who allowed me to hurt Faithful One."

"No!"

"You brought me to her, told me she was valuable, told me everything I needed to know about your life and how to squeeze the misery out of you. You made all this possible! And now, you shall know one last misery."

He hadn't noticed the mist swirling behind him. Now it closed in.

"You shall know that once I have drained you of all your pain, all your sorrow, all your grief, I shall be strong enough to no longer need a host. I shall truly be a child of my parent, able to survive and bring about such misery as this world has not seen since you and Ancient One put the Oricalchos God to death."

"No! Leave me alone!" Yuugi dodged the tendrils and ran for the door. If he could just get it open, Yami could come and stop this creature before it had chance to do even more damage.

It was Yuugi's fault it had escaped Atlantis, and his fault it was now strong enough to start its own vendetta against humankind. It was up to him to stop it – but he couldn't so it without Yami, of that he was certain.

He reached the door. He tried the handle.

He cracked his head against it as Aramanth wrapped thick ropes of living shadow around his ankles and hoisted him into the air.

Yuugi dangled like a rabbit in a snare, twisting frantically. "Yami!" he called. "It's in here! I'm in here! Yami, come quick, before it leaves!"

"He cannot hear you, Innocent One. This place is the ultimate stronghold. It is your private shelter, reachable by nobody unless they have a key or you provide safe access. Wise One is far away and nobody else may enter unless you open the door, and you shall do no such thing." It drew him in. "What a delectable morsel you are. I am glad you allowed me to grow and develop my own emotions, for now I am able to enjoy this."

"No! _No!"_

* * *

She was black. She was dark. She was nothing.

She was …

No.

She _was_.

She wasn't some intruder, but part of this abyss, this void, this sea. This was everything. This was nothing, and so was she.

She? That implied self. No, it.

What?

Nothing there.

Nothing.

Noth.

Not.

No.

_No._

_NO!_

"_No! __**No!**__"_

Falling.

Falling upwards.

No, not falling. There was more than just falling. There was … not-falling.

What was not-falling?

Rising. There was rising.

She was rising. And rising had to mean there was more than just the sea, because rising meant going towards the surface. The sea had a surface.

She felt something twitch, realised it was her, and then realised she had realised something. Thought. Her thought. Her very own. _Her_.

Rising.

More thoughts returned as she rose. They swam in the shallower waters.

She wasn't a part of this place; she was different – separate. She was herself. She had a self. She was something. She was some_one_. She was …

Who was she?

Rising.

Something was drawing her upwards. She focussed on it, hoping it would bring more of her back. She was deep beneath the ocean, but on the surface was something important. It called to her.

Rising.

Getting faster.

"_No!"_

Familiar. Rise faster. Got to …

"_No!"_

Important.

Must … not-rest.

Must … do.

Must do … something.

Must do something … important.

Putting together these scattered bits into a coherent thought sapped her strength, but even as it left her, new strength arrived. The closer she got to the surface, the stronger she felt, and the more like … herself.

Self.

She had a self.

She had a … purpose.

She had … had …

_Ressst…_

She fell back. She was tired. Of course she was tired. She was always tired. That was why she was here, where tiredness didn't matter. That was why she was always falling, because falling required no effort. Here there was only black; only emptiness. Abyss, void, vacuum. Like her. No thought, no feeling, no obligation, no …

Fear.

It stabbed into her; not her own, but compelling all the same.

Panic.

Pain.

Help.

She had to help.

She had to help…

_No, jussst resssst … fall … _

Help. Help me. help me, please.

_Ignore it. Midge buzzings. Not important. _

Yes it is. The thought struggled to be heard. It is important. Very, very important. You made a promise.

_What is a promise? Forget. Insignificant, inconsequential, irrelevant._

Can't … can't forget … Can't forget it. Smiley face. Four hands. Them. Him.

"Yuugi!"

She opened her eyes. She kicked. She headed for the surface.

* * *

Honda honestly didn't know what to do.

On one hand was Yami, shell-shocked in a far-too-familiar way. On the other hand was Mrs. Mazaki, also shell-shocked, but in a way he wasn't sure he could deal with right now. There was no time, not with Yuugi and Yami and Aramanth and … but her face had gone deathly white, and she looked one beat away from a heart attack, and she was Anzu's _Mom..._

"Dude, focus." Jounouchi put a hand on his shoulder.

Honda snapped back to himself. Focus. Right. Triage time – again.

Outside the waiting room he could hear people rushing about, calling to each other in panicky voices. This was the second blackout in a short time, and though the power was back again (for all the good it did _them_ with a busted light bulb), this _had_ to have caused even more problems for the hospital. Nobody besides them had any idea what was going on, and panic rode shotgun in the halls. Words like 'auxiliary' and 'generator' flew past the door on gurneys and in wheelchairs.

Sooner or later someone would notice the waiting room was still dark, and then there'd be all sorts of questions they couldn't spare time to answer. Time and magic waited for no man.

He swung to look at Jounouchi. "You said Aramanth only moved Anzu's soul, right? So it probably hasn't destroyed Yuugi's, just moved it too."

Jounouchi nodded. "But to where?"

"Moved Anzu's soul?" Mrs. Mazaki whispered. "What was that thing? What's going on here? What on earth have you kids gotten yourselves mixed up in?"

Honda took a deep breath. First things first. Time and magic waited for no man, but neither did distraught mothers, and they could be just as destructive if they got involved in stuff they didn't understand and got in the way.

He turned to her. "Mrs. Mazaki, I know you're scared and you want answers, but right now I need for you to trust us and give us a chance to handle this." He was amazed he sounded so calm and … actually, so much like his dad.

Honda resisted the urge to blink in confusion. He didn't sound much different than he usually did, but suddenly he heard his dad's voice in his mouth, like when he was a kid and he got the lecture on how gangs were bad with the gory detail left in. Mr. Hiroto was a big influence in his son's life, but until that moment Honda had thought he took more after his mother than the hulking man he called dad. Mr. Hiroto was all man, a total adult with t take-charge attitude and the biceps to make good on any promise made. And now Honda sounded like him. When had that happened?

Mrs. Mazaki's eyes were the size of soup plates. "We should call someone – a-a doctor, or the police. Or the army! Th-that thing, it … it was …"

Honda snapped back into the moment. "They can't help; not with this. Please, Mrs. Mazaki. Trust me when I say that if you want Anzu back, you'll let us handle it."

"Meron," said Grandpa Mutou, "listen to the boy."

She swivelled to look at him. "You knew about this?"

"Only bits." His guilt was visible even in the poor light. "But he's telling the truth."

Tears filled her eyes. "This is real, isn't it? This isn't a nightmare I'm having."

"I wish," Jounouchi snorted.

"No," Honda said sympathetically. "It isn't."

She opened her mouth to as another question, and then closed it again. She nodded, just once, and in a jerky way, like she was ripping off a band-aid without knowing whether the scab underneath was ready. So much of Anzu showed up in that nod that Honda felt her loss afresh.

He set his jaw.

He wished he had time to explain things properly, but the faster they moved, the better their chances. Yuugi was gone, Anzu too, and he was willing to bet to the same place. If it was the last thing he ever did, he would get his friends back.

A thought struck him. Quickly, he turned back Mrs. Mazaki. "Oh, and I never slept with Anzu."

Mrs. Mazaki stared at him and nodded dumbly.

Honda would've been lying had he denied the frisson of relief that generated.

Shock faded, evidence of how used to weird crises he was becoming. It was replaced by anger that ulcerated inside him. Aramanth had been there, right there in front of them, and they'd lost it _again_.

Honda replayed what had just happened – unfortunately he couldn't remember much. The room had gone dark, Yami had challenged Aramanth, then everything cleared and Yami was on the floor.

"Yami."

Honda whipped around.

Jounouchi knelt by Yami, shaking him by the shoulders. "Don't you freak out on us! I'm not going through that again."

Good point. "Yami, concentrate. Concentrate! You can't help Yuugi if you go to pieces."

Yami's eyes were unfocussed. His breathing was shallow. The lights were on, but clearly nobody was home.

Aw, man, they couldn't afford for him to zone out. Yami was the only one who knew what had happened, and the only one with magic. They _needed_ him coherent.

"Yami!" Jounouchi balled up his fist, hesitated, and then opened his palm and slapped him. Yami's head snapped to the side and stayed there. He probably would've toppled over like a bowling pin, had Jounouchi's other hand not kept him upright. "Yo, Nameless Pharaoh! Either you snap out of it, pronto, or we risk losing Yuugi for good!"

Yami stared at the floor. For a second Honda thought it would be a repeat of the last time they lost Yuugi's soul, and his insides clenched. They'd escaped that time, but the price had almost been everything and everyone they held dear. This time they might not be so lucky.

Then, slowly, Yami raised his eyes. They focussed on Jounouchi's face and a scowl creased his forehead, seeming to trickle down his face until it reached his mouth. "Aramanth," he said when it thinned his lips to angry, bloodless lines, "will pay dearly for this."

Jounouchi smiled grimly. "Atta boy. Okay, tiger, time to clue us in. What happened when you Shadow Gamed it? I thought you said you could take care of it if you got it into a Shadow Game?"

"If the rules of a Shadow Game are broken, punishment must be meted out – usually the price of one soul."

"Yuugi didn't take your place again, did he?"

"No. Aramanth kidnapped his soul on purpose and took it…" Yami looked uncertain, fraying his scowl at the edges. "I don't know where it took him."

"Think, dude. Don't you two have some telepathy or something?"

"We have a mindlink."

"Is it still working? Can't you follow that to see where he went, like tracing a phone line? The police do it all the time. It's how they catch crooks."

"I am not the police."

"Still gonna catch the bad guy. So can you do it?"

More scowling.

"Dude -"

"I am trying to find the link."

"Oh."

Honda felt sick at heart, as though he, personally, had failed in some way. Once again, bad things were happening and he couldn't do anything to fix them. He hated the helplessness that provoked. If he survived long enough to graduate, he swore, he was picking a career where he could _protect_ people, not just watch while others risked their lives.

Beads of sweat appeared on Yami's forehead and temples. His scowl deepened.

"Have you found it?" demanded Jounouchi.

"I…" Yami grunted, shut his eyes for a second, and then opened them wide. "The Millennium Puzzle!"

"What?" Both Jounouchi and Honda were nonplussed.

"I hear something."

"You hear Yuugi?"

"No." The anguish was clear in his tone, but Yami also sounded surprised. "But I can hear … banging."

"Say what?" Jounouchi yelped.

Honda elbowed him. "Not that kind of banging." He looked at Yami askance. "Right?"

But Yami's eyes had closed again. "It might be Yuugi. I can't feel him, but it could be …"

"Check it out." Jounouchi was firmer than iron. "Whatever it is, it might be important."

Yami nodded once, and seemed to turn inwards on himself. It wasn't something Honda could explain. Physically, Yami didn't change, but something about him suddenly had its back to them, and he knew that the Pharaoh's spirit had gone into the Millennium Puzzle around his neck. The silence that fell was the sort of anticipatory silence that fell just before a smack.

They waited for what seemed like an eternity, but must only have been a couple of minutes. Honda could hear Mrs. Mazaki make choking noises, and Grandpa Mutou's breathing quicken, but he couldn't afford to turn around. He just stared at Yami, willing him to find and bring back Yuugi so they could kick Aramanth's butt.

Jounouchi looked at his hand. "Man."

"What?" said Honda.

"Nothing. I just can't believe I bitch-slapped him."

* * *

Yami was reeling. Cataclysmic, catastrophic destruction had struck and he hadn't seen it coming.

Disaster at its worst catches you by surprise. In an instant your future can disappear, and nothing can adequately prepare you for the moment. There's a millisecond of surprise, and then the heaviness of heart when finality is recognised. Millions of people have been through this, and millions will again. Disaster existed before humankind, they just added to its repertoire when they took up their spot on the planet.

Unlike last time disaster of this kind struck, however, Yami was not going to let himself be overtaken by despair this time. No; this time he was going to fight from the very beginning. Nobody was going to keep him from his aibou, and nobody was going to suffer or lose their soul while he got his act together.

The spring of resolve inside him tightened into confusion when he entered the Puzzle. He could feel Yuugi everywhere; a taste in his throat, a smell in the air, an echo that reverberated off the walls like a drumbeat. Most of it was memory, he knew. The Millennium Puzzle collected memories and stored them away, hidden in its labyrinth. In these rooms were afterimages of the things that had occurred here and, he suspected, the memories he had lost of who he really was.

Yet he sensed that some of what he felt was _not _memory. It felt like the other side of a frayed cord; like something unravelling but still whole enough to be recognisable. As he touched down in the corridor outside his own Soul Room he raised his head and was instantly taken with the door of Yuugi's Soul Room. It was still closed, as it had been when Anzu was hurt and Yuugi sealed himself inside for privacy.

To bolster his connection with his aibou, Yami laid a hand against the door. Magic wasn't always about sweeping gestures and billowing cloaks. Quite a bit was ritualistic; concerned with the small things and what they represented.

His head rocketed backwards with the force of the magic that repelled him. He hit the opposite wall so hard it would've cracked, had it existed in the real world.

The door stayed shut, but to Yami it was suddenly very different. The mindlink sent pulses of white-hot agony into him, and he thought he could hear Yuugi crying out in pain.

He pushed himself off the wall and flew at the door, mindless of the danger it posed to himself. Again, he was repelled, and again, and again; but each time he could feel a little more through the mindlink. His hands burned and became covered in red welts, as he pushed and hit the door with his fists.

"Yuugi!" he shouted. "Aibou!"

It was so _obvious_. Aramanth had admitted that it only moved souls from their bodies, which indicated it had nowhere to put them. Where better to store what it had stolen but in a ready-made prison like the Millennium Puzzle? And since Yuugi's soul had become so entwined with the Puzzle his own Soul Room was the perfect, ironic cage.

Yet the door remained resolutely shut. Yami stepped back and glared at it, and in so doing he realised the pounding of his fists carried on. He looked at his injured hands, but realised in the same instant that the noise actually came from one of the other doors that lined the numerous corridors throughout the Puzzle.

In fact, the banging came from _behind_ one of the other doors.

Yami reached out and re-established his connection with the artefact that had kept him captive for millennia. On some level he hated the Puzzle, but it was now so much a part of him that it was like hating your big toe or left nostril. His mind sank into it, took on the shape of its pieces, its sharp edges, its insignia …

There was his own Soul Room, a pulsing space that reeked of him. He skimmed down corridors, under archways, up stairs and along passages. He tasted decades of dust, shreds of half-lidded memory and something that might have been blood, but spent no time examining these as he sought the source of the pounding.

As he went by Yuugi's Soul Room he couldn't resist extending himself to try and force the door with mind alone – and rebounded so hard and fast his mind tumbled over itself and landed in a heap behind his eyes.

"Pharaoh!" Jounouchi's voice, urgent and concerned.

Yami opened his eyes. He was back in Yuugi's body, the physical world heavy around him. "Yuugi…" he murmured, gathering his wits. "I found him. He's inside the Millennium Puzzle."

"Really?" said Honda. "How's that possible?"

"Aramanth has trapped him inside his own Soul Room. I think it's in there with him."

"Then we gotta get him out!" Jounouchi's voice rose in pitch.

"I tried breaking down the door, but I wasn't strong enough." Involuntarily Yami glanced at his hands, but in the real world they were unscathed. Phantom pain ghosted over his senses, his own and what must have been Yuugi's. "I'm going to try again."

"Dude, you are so taking us with you."

"No." He shook his head.

"You mean you can't do it?"

"I mean I won't. It's too dangerous."

"Did that sound like a request? Stop arguing and make with the magic." Jounouchi was defiant. "What are you waiting for?"

"Yeah," Honda added. "We're not getting any younger."

"You won't get any older if Aramanth damages your souls while they're separated from your bodies."

"Why are we even arguing about this? If you think we're just gonna sit around here twiddling our thumbs while Yuugi's in trouble, then you've got another thing coming." Honda blinked. "Hey, if Aramanth trapped Yuugi in the Millennium Puzzle, could Anzu be in there too?"

"Anzu?" Mrs. Mazaki's head snapped up. "You have to save her! You have to save my daughter!" She scrambled to her feet.

"Meron -" Grandpa Mutou started, but she didn't heed him.

"I may not understand what's going on here, but I do understand that you kids have a bond unlike anything I've ever seen before. You can – you can see it in the way you talk to each other, the things you say. I said some terrible things before, and I'm sorry, but I can see that you're more than just friends. Anzu's always talked about how her friendship with you boys makes her feel stronger, but I never understood what she meant before. I thought it was some kind of teenage infatuation. I-I'm not sure I truly understand now, either, but she," she swallowed, "she needs you, and so does little Yuugi. If there's any way you can help them, then you have to do it. Please." She clenched her fists. "You're the only ones who can. I'm begging you. She's the most precious thing in the world to me."

"Can't argue with that," said Jounouchi. "We've had the required friendship speech, and it came from someone named Mazaki. How can we fail after that? So are we gonna save the day or what?"

"We're stronger together, man." Honda folded his arms. "Proven fact."

Yami looked between them and sighed. He knew from experience that he wouldn't be able to dissuade them, and a part of him was grateful for that.

Not for the first time he realised he couldn't have asked for better friends.

"All right." He held out the Puzzle. "Brace yourselves."

"Here we come to save the day," Honda warbled, _sotto voce_, as both he and Jounouchi did as they were told.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_Time and magic waited for no man._

-- Riff off the famous line, 'Time and tide wait for no man' ('And te tide and te time þat tu iboren were, schal beon iblescet' - _St. Marher_, 1225).

_Yami was reeling. Cataclysmic, catastrophic destruction had struck and he hadn't seen it coming. _

-- Partially boosted from _Stupid Cupid_ by Arabella Weir.

"_Here we come to save the day," Honda warbled, sotto voce_.

-- Honda's mimicking Mighty Mouse here, the rodent superhero who always sang his own theme song as he flew to the rescue.

* * *


	10. Long Lost Friend

* * *

**9. Long Lost Friend**

* * *

**The moment that we met  
There was something so familiar,  
I felt like I'd known you for a thousand years.  
And there inside your eyes  
I saw a light that I'd been missing.**

-- From_ Long Lost Friend _by Chicago.

* * *

Yuugi felt more tired than ever before in his life. It was even worse than that day years ago, when he stayed over at Grandpa's and found him in the kitchen, tearful and clutching the phone as he received news that his daughter and son-in-law had been in a road accident. Even then, sudden bereavement constricting his windpipe, Yuugi hadn't felt this tired. This was more than tired. This was tired squared. This was tired _cubed_. His brain had been replaced by gauze and jam, which weren't dong a swell job conducting the electrical impulses they were supposed to.

Thinking hurt. Thoughts spent much longer than usual coming together, until he stopped trying to gather them. The only thing that made it through to his conscious brain was a driving sense of regret.

He'd failed his friends.

They'd been hurt because of him. He couldn't remember specifics, but he knew it was his fault. It was only right and fair that he stay away from them so they wouldn't be hurt anymore.

"Yesss…" whispered a voice. He was too tired to think who it might be. "It _is _your fault. They're better off without you. So ressst… forget everything and ressst…"

He _wanted _to rest. The tiredness was cloying. It was too much trouble to fight it. He wanted to fall and keep falling until the guilt and hurting stopped.

But someone was knocking.

Yuugi squirmed. Smatterings of old thought skittered through his brain. He should… he had to…

The voice changed, becoming fierce. "If they get in here then I will drain them until they are nothing but husks. Empty, lifeless, ended. They will be hurt – _again_. And it will be your fault."

"My fault…" Yuugi murmured.

"Yesss … _your_ fault." The voice pressed closer. So did the tiredness. Yuugi fought just to concentrate. "_If_ you let them in, that is. Do you want your friends to die, Innocent One? Do you want me to take their souls?"

No, he didn't want that. He had to keep his friends safe. He had to … protect … keep them … keep them sa-

"Out. Keep them out, Innocent One."

Yes, he had to keep them out, where they'd be safe. It was all he _could_ do to keep them safe, since he had no magic and it was his fault. His fault … his … keep … keep them …

So tired … where had all his energy gone?

Aramanth flicked a tendril into his chest and pulled out another struggling piece of what might have been gossamer. This it ate, slowly, savouring the taste of Yuugi's overdeveloped sense of culpability. "Yesss…"

* * *

"Man, you weren't kidding." Jounouchi picked himself up. "I feel like a lump of dough that's been pulverized by a baker having a bad day."

Yami glowered at the door to Yuugi's Soul Room. "I warned you. Aramanth is much stronger than I anticipated." He glanced at them, interposed as he was between them and the door. "Are you all right?"

"Peachy keen."

"Honda?"

"Hang on; I'm just picking my spleen up off the floor."

Jounouchi rolled his neck. "Want to go again?"

Honda did likewise. "Sure."

They ran at the door, shoulders down. At once a wall of mist roared up, flinging them backwards. They crashed into the opposite wall and slid down, groaning.

"Third time's the charm," Jounouchi wheezed.

"This isn't working." Yami was incensed. His mindlink with Yuugi wasn't completely restored, but he could feel his aibou growing weaker, while the magic Aramanth had set to guard the door grew more powerful. It wasn't difficult to make the connection. "We have to get this door open before it's too late!"

"On three?"

But Honda shook his head. "Brute force isn't working. Can't we use magic instead? We're running out of time." He flexed his fists, which were blistered with angry red welts. "Hey, how come these aren't going away even though we're not, y'know, actually flesh and blood right now?"

"And how come yours are?" Jounouchi asked of Yami's unblemished hands.

"This isn't the physical plane," Yami replied distractedly. "That doesn't mean damage here can't be lasting. Souls outside their bodies often retain the vestiges of humanity that make it mortal because their minds can't let it go, so they're limited. I forgot before, when I'd been in control of Yuugi's body. Now I've reasserted control of myself. I am more in tune with my surroundings than you because I'm used to being free from flesh. Wearing flesh changes the shape of your mind, so that you try to superimpose its limitations onto the astral plane."

Jounouchi stared at him. "What the hell did you just say?"

"We don't have time for lengthy explanations!" Yami snapped.

Honda thought he understood what Yami meant, but he was damned if he could repeat it. Suddenly he paused. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Jounouchi asked. "The sound of my brain exploding?"

"That … drumming."

He cocked his head. "Yeah, I do. Hey is that what you heard before, Yami?"

"Yes. But it's not Yuugi," Yami replied, in a tone that dismissed it as unimportant because of this.

A look passed between them, but before they could say what they were thinking, the shadows that had begun writhing around the edges of the Yuugi's door flared. Aramanth's mocking laugher echoed, seeming to reach into their ears and beat a tattoo against their eardrums.

"Yesss … Ohhh, yesss …"

Yami rushed forward but was beaten back. "Yuugi! Fight it, Yuugi!"

"This door is seriously pissing me off." Jounouchi cast a fleeting look up and down the corridor. "We need some magical dynamite or something."

The shadows reached out and snagged Yami's wrists. He grunted, but Honda grabbed him and dragged him backwards.

"It's killing him," Honda gritted. "This had gone way beyond just using him as a battery pack. I don't think it's gonna stop this time until Yuugi's history."

Yami produced a Duel Monsters card, which crackled with magical energy, and suddenly Celtic Guardian towered over them. Honda and Jounouchi were impressed.

"This part of the whole 'in tune with the astral plane' thing?"

Celtic Guardian raised its sword and charged, chopping at the mist, and actually made it to the door itself. A groove opened up where the sword point slashed.

Yami collapsed, clutching his chest.

A thin scream that sounded a lot like Yuugi pierced the air.

"Pharaoh!"

"I … can't attack the door. It's as much a part of Yuugi as the interior of his Soul Room."

"Damn it!" Jounouchi couldn't have been more obvious if he'd physically picked up thoughts of Flaming Swordsman and his precious Red Eyes Black Dragon and put them aside – not that he could summon them anyway. He'd left his cards behind, so they hadn't appeared with him like his clothes, and neither he nor Honda knew enough about the astral plane and magic and whatever to just pull one out of thin air the way Yami had. "This is stupid! How the hell are we supposed to get in there?"

Celtic Guardian vanished.

Yami stood up on his own. "I don't know. I don't know how to help him." He trembled with ineffectual rage. "That creature is _torturing_ him, and I can't help him."

Honda shut his eyes, trying to think of a solution. He had less magic than anyone; he could barely duel his way out of a paper bag, as he'd shown so many times before. He was the lateral player, the one who thought his way out of problems without the same tools as Yuugi or Jounouchi. Him and Anzu, the cheerleaders – except that Anzu was MIA and he was here being even more useless than usual. He really, really wished Anzu was there so they could put their heads together –

_Let me out._

Huh?

_Let. Me. Out._

Was that…?

_Help me._

"Yowch!" Suddenly his hand felt like it was on fire. It wasn't the one he'd injured punching the door, so it shouldn't have hurt. Honda raised it to look at, and then lifted his head. An idea turned over in his mind like an alligator in a death roll. "Maybe…"

"What?" Jounouchi was all ears. "Maybe what?"

Abruptly, Honda set off down the corridor. He ran, shocking his friends as they both knew how easy it was to become hopelessly lost in the Puzzle. Time, space and reason worked differently here. You could run for miles and find you'd moved three doors away, or take a handful of steps and never get home again. The Millennium Puzzle laughed at breadcrumbs and picked balls of string from between its teeth. Plus, _things_ lurked in the rooms – things that could make an unwary explorer wish he'd tied his mother's apron strings around his throat and jumped off a high ledge.

"Honda!"

He hadn't gone far. He was still visible. "Over here!"

Jounouchi guided Yami towards him; both loath to leave Yuugi's Soul Room for even a moment.

The door in front of Honda looked no different than Yuugi's, except it didn't pulse with shadows.

However, something _was_ hammering against it from the other side. The sound seemed to grow louder as they became aware of it, rather than as they got closer.

The handle stayed cool to the touch when Honda tried it. "It's locked."

"No door is locked in the Puzzle," said Yami. There was no need. If you were able to find the door you wanted then you'd earned the right to open it. Either that or whatever prowled beyond the door had given permission for you to reach it. It was fortune's choice whether the actual _act_ of opening a door proved good or bad – or fatal.

Honda tried again. "Well this one is."

_Let me out._

This time they all heard it; a voiceless voice, familiar and insistent. Honda's hand burned again, but only the back, and the pain was strange – radiating in strips across his skin, as though remembering an old pattern of pain.

"That's Anzu!" Jounouchi exclaimed. "Damn it, Aramanth stored her soul here, too! I knew it!"

_Stronger together._

The pounding at the door got louder, as though someone was throwing their entire body against it. The words echoed around them, garbled but comprehensible.

_Out. Let me. Together. Stand together. Stronger. Friendship. Stronger. Out. Let me. Stand. Friends. Out, you idiots!_

"Yup, that sounds like Anzu."

"This isn't a Soul Room," Honda observed, running his hands over the door's surface. He kicked it and bounced back holding his foot, but there was no reaction like when Yuugi's door was damaged. If anything, the hammering got louder.

Yami produced a card and the Celtic Guardian reappeared. One quick slice and the handle tumbled to the floor, and the Duel Monster kicked out with preternatural strength.

The door cracked open, revealing strange darkness beyond that could only be described as _thick_–

A wave of sudden tiredness slammed into Yami, Jounouchi and Honda with almost physical force. It knocked them to their knees. Jounouchi coughed, as though his lungs were filling with the stuff, but Honda heard him as if from far away. For a handful of seconds all thoughts of Yuugi, Anzu and saving his friends vanished from his head; all he wanted was to lay his head down and sleep until the day he died and could sleep forever.

With a sound like air hissing from a tyre, or liquid rushing from a punctured water balloon, the magic Aramanth had used to cushion the room and suppress the soul inside escaped. It was like being run over by a million stampeding mice.

In the same instant, something large and white erupted from inside the room.

"Aiiiiiiiyaaaaa!"

Struggling to their feet, Jounouchi, Honda and Yami hit the deck again. Jounouchi covered his head, as the white thing skimmed their skulls, hurtled down the corridor and crashed into the door of Yuugi's Soul Room.

Aramanth's shadows grasped greedily, pulling it down.

The shape was a blur as it backed up and crashed into the door again, and then again, never seeming to touch the floor. Yet the door wouldn't give any more than it had for the three boys. A horrible sizzling accompanied each impact, like meat patties hitting a barbeque.

The back of Honda's hand burned overpoweringly. It jolted him back to himself. Jounouchi also yelped, shaking his hand like one might after accidentally touching a hot surface. By this time Honda knew what the sensation was – things were different on the astral plane, where a memory could take on physical qualities and a symbolic gesture could literally bite you in the ass to remind you it was there.

The white shape hurtled against the door, over and over. "You pinkie swore!" it screamed. "You pinkie swore it would always be open to me!"

The shadows grasped and pulled and sniggered

"You're breaking your promise!" Crash! Sizzle! "_Yuugi!_"

And then, impossibly, the door swung open.

The white shape shook off the shadows and bolted through without touching the ground.

"Quick!" Jounouchi was on his feet and running, Honda and Yami not far behind. They moved sluggishly, as the magic they'd released dissipated into the Puzzle's labyrinth.

The door was already closing again, misty fingers solidifying to shove it.

"He's mine!" Aramanth bellowed. "My meal! My feast! He belongs to me!"

"Oh no you don't!" Jounouchi put on a burst of speed, yanking the handle to keep it open. "No! You! Don't!"

Yes it did.

The door shut with a resounding clang.

"No!" Yami smashed his fist against it, tears of rage and frustration beading at the corners of his eyes.

He'd been so close. So _close_! He'd felt the mindlink open, had Yuugi's drained spirit touch his own and felt his aibou's agony … and now it was once again muffled by Aramanth and this accursed door.

It wasn't _fair_.

"Yuugi! YUUGI!"

* * *

Aramanth hissed like an angry cat. "You should have stayed where you were, Faithful One."

"You don't get the irony of what you just said, do you?"

It hissed again. "What do you think _you_ can achieve? You are but one soul; tiny, insignificant, unimportant. Weary, exhausted, fatigued. You have no magic."

"Actually, since you put me to sleep when you abducted me, I'm feeling really refreshed." Anzu spread her feet. "Bad move, because I'm also really ticked off. I may not be very powerful, but you'd be surprised what one tiny, insignificant, unimportant soul can do."

It broke off hissing to laugh. "Throwing my words back at me? Childish, facile, immature."

"Sticks and stones."

"You forget, Faithful One; I know better than any living creature what one soul can achieve. I watched Bitter One raze a nation and spend ten thousand years resurrecting a god, and I watched Ancient One destroy him for it. But you are not they, Faithful One. You are human. You are alone. You are _weak_."

"I am bored. You talk too much. Put Yuugi down, right now."

Coils of tangible shadow bound tighter around the little figure.

Yuugi hung like a marionette with snarled strings, eyes closed and mouth open. His chest writhed with dark tendrils, like some black sea anemone was bursting out of his ribcage. His hands hung slack and his skin had taken on a terrible pallor. He looked already dead, and only the fact that his Soul Room still surrounded them told Anzu he wasn't. Still, something deep in her chest constricted at the sight.

Over him loomed Aramanth – and loom was the only word that fitted. It had gorged so much on Yuugi that it was grotesquely swollen, all but filling the Soul Room. When it moved, it slurped noisily. Unlike the mist she'd seen in the alley, now Aramanth was denser, pulsing like a heart beat at its core. Its tendrils were more like actual limbs, and it was as if everything dark, everything loathsome that had ever crawled, squirmed or grown into existence had a place somewhere in that roiling, pulsing mass – beetles, flies, snakes, spiders, rats, rot, decay, disease, murderers, psychopaths, all of them seemed to stare back at Anzu. Though it had no eyes, more than before she could _feel _it glaring at her.

Toys had been crushed under it or swept aside by its limbs. Anzu thought she could see the twisted front wheel of a bike and a Gameboy amongst them.

She swallowed her fear. Concern for Yuugi boiled inside her to become hot fury.

"Innocent One is mine. I cultivated him as he cultivated me. He is my prize, my reward, my greatest meal."

"Wrong answer." With that, she flung herself forward. It was a really, really stupid thing to do, but she did it anyway. "Let him _go_!"

A thick limb batted her aside. She collided with the wall, slid down, and clambered shakily to her feet. "Is that all you got?" she asked, doing a passable impression of Jounouchi. Jounouchi wouldn't let some fat … _thing _stop him saving her friend, and she could do nothing less.

Yuugi dangled limply.

She tried again. "Yuugi, wake up! I know you can hear me!"

Aramanth hissed and smashed her away so hard she would have been killed outright in reality.

However, this was _not_ reality – not as Anzu perceived it. Reality was the world outside Soul Rooms and Millennium Items and the astral plane. Reality was where you could die if your wounds were bad enough, but the astral plane as Anzu understood it was where sheer force of will could turn the tide in a fight, and wounds were no more serious than you let them be.

Yami was right when he said wearing flesh changed the shape of your mind. A soul tethered to a physical body still thought like a physical body – it thought it could be hurt in the same ways, and even when it couldn't, it translated new injuries into old forms. That was why when Aramanth's magic hit Jounouchi and Honda it appeared as blisters, bruises and broken bones. They hadn't been out of their bodies long enough to stop registering hurts in ways their minds could understand, and they were still too attached to their physical anchors to let go and manipulate the plane the way Yami could.

Yet if Jounouchi and Honda's souls were connected to their bodies by chains, Anzu's connection had thinned to something like fraying rope. Her body had sustained so much damage that her soul was already automatically making preparations to leave it if required, but as her connection to the physical world waned, her relationship with the ethereal increased. It was instinctive, but the form in which she'd awakened was enough of an indication as to what the astral plane made her capable of.

Anzu had been separated from her body for far longer than her friends. Seconds counted as much as minutes, hours, or longer on the astral plane. True, she'd spent a lot of that time in a fugue state, but because of that her soul's instincts had hit self-preservation mode, and that went way beyond human limitations. The same way mothers have been known to suddenly gain enough strength to lift cars to save their children, Anzu was now infused with the single purpose of saving her best friend, and it pushed her to do things she'd think impossible were there _time_ to think about them.

So when she got to her feet, she was still cut and bruised, but able to stick out her tongue and try again. She wore the proof of her purpose plainly. The unaccustomed weight on her back gave her metaphorical strength – nothing like this _could_ happen in reality. On the astral plane, she knew – had _seen _– most anything was possible, both good _and_ bad. Here, unlike reality, if you wanted something badly enough you could _make _it happen from will alone.

She was totally focussed on Yuugi. The need to protect him was what had broken her from Aramanth's enchanted sleep. However, unlike Sleeping Beauty, Anzu wasn't thinking of princes and thorn hedges; she was thinking about how badly she wanted to kick Aramanth's butt. Bad enough it had stolen her soul and locked it away; now it was threatening her best friends.

And that, as anyone who knew her would attest, was something Anzu would _not_ stand for.

She was aware that Jounouchi, Honda and Yami hadn't made it through the door behind her, but that paled compared to seeing Yuugi.

"Yuugi, wake _up_!"

He didn't move.

Aramanth punted her backwards, but this time she rolled with it, spread her limbs and powered under the writhing tendrils. Unused to moving this way, she clipped the floor and staggered, back onto her feet, barely avoiding another thwack.

It might have been her imagination, but Aramanth was moving a lot slower. Perhaps it was learning the downside of overeating. Or perhaps it genuinely hadn't expected her to get loose and now didn't know how to handle her and feed off Yuugi at the same time.

_This feels way too much like a bad hentai movie_, thought the irrepressible part of her brain - the part that didn't brush over magazines profiling Seto Kaiba as an eligible bachelor and noticed when Yami had swapped with Yuugi.

Avoiding tentacles was so bizarre she had no room to think of how scared she was. Yet that irrepressible part of her brain kept up its commentary as she ducked and dodged, shouting Yuugi's name. _Is this how the guys felt when they faced the Oricalchos God? This is so different than playing a card game. Cards are all about life points – they can't smash your face in or squash you flat –_

Aramanth shrieked, flailing wildly. A tentacle swung out and caught Anzu on the side of her face. The impact cracked like a rifle shot inside her head; her teeth cut into her bottom lip and she tumbled. She cried out, tried to right herself, and landed on a cracked chess board and broken tennis racquet.

Disproving her theory, Aramanth moved with a speed that would give lightning a nasty shock, stabbing a sharpened, slate-coloured tentacle into her stomach.

Astral plane or not, Anzu screamed.

This wasn't right. Hitting the wall hadn't hurt this much.

"He is mine! But if you wish to join him in my belly, then I shall be as the djinn and grant your wish." Aramanth scooped her up like a fish skewered on a stick. Shadows coiled around her, pinning her arms and legs. "You cannot save him, Faithful One. He is already too far gone."

Anzu didn't believe it, but glanced at Yuugi through a haze of pain.

He was practically translucent – literally – and still fading. Even as she watched, his body winked in and out of existence and grew hazy at the edges, like a cross-stitch pattern gently coming unravelled.

He was fading _away_.

No. No! They couldn't have gone through all they'd gone through, only for it to end like this. Seto Kaiba, Pegasus, Bakura, Malik, Dartz – Yuugi had not only survived all that, but beaten and reformed them. He couldn't then die because some uppity spirit fancied a snack.

"Yuugi!" Anzu's eyes filled with tears. "Yuugi, please! Wake up! You can fight it! Please, Yuugi, don't die. Don't – ugh." She grunted, as Aramanth twisted the tentacle embedded in her stomach. "Not the real world," she muttered. "This is the astral plane."

"That is exactly why it _is_ real, Faithful One."

Had she miscalculated? The astral plane was where miracles could happen. Yami had lasted thousands of years here, which he couldn't have done in reality.

"Your mind is still too attached to its body. Connected, joined, linked. You cannot hope to match me here, in the world of spirit and soul. It was foolishness to try, little Faithful One."

"Oh will you just f-aaaaaaah!"

"The connection between your soul and body is thin." Its voice was rose petals and oil slicks. "What would happen if I were to sever it?"

Anzu went cold all over, momentarily blotting out the pain.

"Your body needs your soul to stay alive, living, breathing. Shall we see, Faithful One? You wished to fight me on this plane. You changed your form to prove you can fight here. You seem at home in the world of dreams and fantasy. Shall we ensure you can never leave it? Shall I burn your ticket home?"

The shadows around her flexed their claws.

* * *

Time and Distance are mutable if you metaphorically tip your head and squint.

Imagine the universe as a ribbon, and now imagine magic as a pair of hands. They can squeeze it, so things shunt and shove to get through to the future, and some get left behind in the past or have to pause, frozen, and then hurry to catch up. They can wiggle the ribbon so Time reverberates, still moving forward but acutely aware of turning points in its own history. They can fold the ribbon in half, so people and things jump from era to era, and place to place, defying the laws of physics.

Magic has little truck with physics. To magic, physics is the snotty-nosed upstart blowing spit balls at the teacher while magic was graduating with its PhD. Physics keeps sidling up to the universe, poking it in the shoulder and telling it what it can and can't do, making up silly rules and expecting everything to adhere to them. Magic can usually be counted on to sniff and do whatever the hell it wanted, rules or no rules – though, thankfully, a lot of the time what magic wants to do is sit back quietly and see how things pan out on their own.

Sometimes, however, humans and magic reacted like chemicals in a beaker and the universe … well, it either trembled or got out of the way really fast before magic could get hold of it by the scruff.

Right now, magic had tied the universe in a big bow. At the centre was a tiny clutch of items, and one of them was the Millennium Puzzle.

So while Yami, Honda, Jounouchi, Anzu and Yuugi engaged with Aramanth inside the Puzzle, another battle was also taking place outside that involved them all. It was both a few feet and a hundred miles away, because the nature of magic is inherently random. People can collar it, and think they've tamed it, but magic is a wild mustang chafing against bridle and saddle. There's always the chance it'll throw its rider and bolt, back into the great beyond – or it could nibble quietly and plod around like a fat lazy pony. You can't predict magic, though arrogant men and women have tried.

Generally it takes patience and prudent use of spatulas to gather them up afterwards.

In another room of the hospital, a flurry of people in scrubs passed each other dishes of surgical instruments and frantically twisted dials. Sweat beaded in the eyebrows of the head surgeon, and was dabbed away by a subordinate. He didn't even thank the woman, too focussed on the task at hand.

"Damn it," he hissed into his mask.

Though he and his team were unaware of it, physics and magic struggled to overcome each other on that operating table.

"We're losing her!"

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_This feels way too much like a bad hentai movie._

-- (Taken from Wikipedia) Hentai is a Japanese word that literally means "strange appearance", but is also used to mean "perverted". Hentai, because of this, is a word used by countries outside of Japan to show pornographic and sex-related animé, manga and video games. The word is not used to mean this in Japan. In Japan, terms such as ecchi are used.

I've chosen to use the word 'hentai' here because it would have more meaning to Joe Average Fan, like me, than 'ecchi', but now you know the truth. Feel pervertedly enlightened!

_Aramanth moved with a speed that would give lightning a nasty shock._

-- From _Reaper Man_ by Terry Pratchett.

* * *


	11. It Ends Tonight

* * *

**10. It Ends Tonight**

* * *

**The walls start breathing  
My mind's unweaving  
Maybe it's best you leave me alone.  
A weight is lifted  
On this evening  
I give the final blow.**

When darkness turns to light  
It ends tonight,  
It ends tonight.  
Just a little insight won't make this right  
It's too late to fight  
It ends tonight,  
It ends tonight. 

From _It Ends Tonight _by All-American Rejects.

* * *

Yami was on his knees. He could barely feel Yuugi anymore, and had to fight to keep hold of their waning mindlink. The strain was clear on his face.

Honda and Jounouchi continued to labour with the door. They were covered in gashes, their clothes torn in dozens of places. The tip of Honda's trademark hair had been burnt off by a whipping tendril.

Jounouchi's left arm hung by his side, the elbow punched in the wrong direction, but even half-blinded by pain he battered towards where he knew his friends were trapped. He'd caught a glimpse of Anzu as she pelted through the door, and though he couldn't explain how she'd changed beyond 'freaky stuff happens when Millennium Items and free-range souls are involved', he suspected even that wasn't enough to stop the juggernaut that was Aramanth.

Yami's eyes blazed. "Aibou," he said in voice that belonged to another age.

At once, the walls of the corridor seemed to crumble and lean inwards. The ceiling bowed like an overloaded shelf. Flakes of dirt drifted loose and the slow grind of stone on stone echoed around them.

"Are you doing that?" Honda looked at the ceiling. "Dude! You'll crush us."

"I will get into that room somehow." Yami's tone was almost beyond reason. He sounded as unstable as when he tried to beat a soulless Insector Haga to death on top of an out-of-control train. Since neither Jounouchi nor Honda had witnessed that, this was a new and alarming development. "Even if I have to tear this place apart to do it, I will -"

They all heard the terrible scream.

Jounouchi went cold all over, and actually forgot about his busted arm for a second. "That was Anzu!"

Yami blinked, momentarily pulled out of his fury. The walls stopped moving – fortunate, as he hadn't considered what might happen if he ruptured the seals on the magics contained within the Millennium Puzzle. He hadn't even considered what might happen to _him_ if he broke the artefact to which his soul was bound, so fixed was he on saving what was most precious to him.

Jounouchi loosed a volley of curses that would make a sailor blush.

The tendrils gushed upwards in a fresh barrier between them and the door, even more powerful than before. They flickered, transforming into dark flames that threw off enough heat to drive the boys backwards.

It took both Honda and Jounouchi working together to stop Yami hurling himself into them.

Aramanth laughed.

And then … suddenly the flames froze, like an ice sculpture of fire. Time seemed to stop, stretching one moment far further than it was meant to go. Even the laughter died. Everything was hit by a giant pause button, which released with such a shrill screech that Jounouchi tried to hold both hands over his ears.

"What the hell…?"

* * *

Anzu wasn't sure what was going on at first. She was aware of her midriff burning, or that was what it felt like – like someone had put her still-attached guts in a blender and switched it on. It was worse than when Aramanth stabbed her the first time. _Then_ it had yanked her soul from her body and stuffed it into a prison filled with magical sedative, so the pain was major but brief. Now it just. Kept. Going.

She would've fainted, except that how could you faint when fainting was a way for the body to cope with pain, and you didn't _have_ a body?

"You have failed," Aramanth whispered into her ear. "You have not saved him."

Tears were hot on her cheeks. The memory of flesh was still recent enough that she imagined she could feel them, just as she could feel herself bleeding when she had no blood.

This wasn't real; the astral plane was alterable. If this was like real life there was no way she'd be brave enough to do something like this. No way.

Except that this was Yuugi, and if he was threatened in real life she'd be just as willing to do anything to save him because he was _Yuugi_. There was no more explanation _possible_ than that.

"What happens in a Soul Room stays happened, Faithful One."

"You're wrong …"

"Am I?"

Was it? Surely there wouldn't be this much pain if Aramanth was lying. She lay in the palm of a giant shadow hand, an extra long, dagger-sharp thumbnail pinning her in place.

"You have caused Innocent One such grief through his love for you; you made him delectable to me. Flavoursome, succulent, enticing. You helped reduce him to this."

"No, I didn't." But the irrepressible part of her brain was back and pointing out that, actually, she kind of _was_ responsible. If she hadn't been in trouble, Yuugi wouldn't have been so worried. And if Yuugi hadn't been so worried about her, then maybe Aramanth wouldn't have targeted him.

It was flawed logic, but already Aramanth's influence was beginning to seep into her. It specialised in clouding the mind and cultivating grief from whatever shreds it could find, twisting the truth to reject logic and focus only on guilt – and their little group had plenty to go around. Anzu was no exception. She regretted being the weak little girl, the cheerleader, the one who always needed rescuing when she was supposed to be a strong, independent modern female. And below that, deep inside, underneath years of speeches, she regretted that she hadn't always been the great friend Yuugi pegged her as.

Guilt and remorse welled inside her like a newly discovered oil well – the cartoon kind that bubbled up and up until they sprayed a fountain of viscous black ooze straight up into the air.

Aramanth groaned with pleasure as these emotions flowed directly into it. It swelled up even more from its newest victim, while Anzu drooped, thoughts clouding except for nagging guilt and sudden fatigue.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Aramanth was right; she'd failed. She hadn't saved anyone. She should just go to sleep and hope she died so she didn't cause any more problems. "I'm sorry, Yuugi, I really am. It's probably better this way. Now you won't have to worry about me."

Which was when Yuugi opened his eyes.

"An… zu…"

He didn't cry, but an awful keening wail came up from inside him. A wolf would make a noise like that if someone stole its cub. It scared Anzu, because she'd never heard a wolf-cry like that from a human before, so even as her delight flickered it was tempered by alarm.

"Yuugi!" She struggled to face him, and then flopped sideways as Aramanth reached past her to rewrap Yuugi in shadow.

"Sleeeep," it murmured. "See what you have wrought, Innocent One? See what you have done to your precious someone?"

What _Yuugi_ had done?

The wolf-cry had cleared her mind for just a second and anger rushed to fill the gap.

Though it could be attracted to more than one person's grieving mind, Aramanth could not concentrate properly on more than one at a time. While it was distracted by Yuugi, Anzu took the opportunity to wrench free.

The slurping that accompanied this would've made her nauseous, had it not been for the burst of agony that gripped her pain receptors. It was pain unlike anything she'd ever imagined – every scraped knee, cut, bruise, shattered fibula, bumped head, burst appendix, plus sixteen years' worth of other hurts clubbed together and _still_ couldn't equal what she felt now.

Something moved inside her midriff, sliding free. It made her feel sick and dizzy, further breaking her free from Aramanth's enchanted tiredness and mind trickery.

Gritting her teeth, vision swimming, she arrowed towards Yuugi and snatched him from Aramanth's grasp while it wasn't concentrating on her.

Aramanth shrieked in outrage, but moved sluggishly, too bloated to move quickly yet.

"Anzu…?" Yuugi peered groggily up at her, separation driving the cloudiness from his eyes, too. "You're … here?"

"You thought I was going to stay away while you got yourself into another fix?"

"But that's not possible. I'm dreaming again."

Anzu's face contorted in pain. "Trust me: you're not dreaming."

What happened in a Soul Room stayed happened. She'd been wrong – or, not _wrong_, but unclear on the limitations of the astral plane. Remove a soul from its body and it could do magical things, but it was vulnerable. Put it in a Soul Room, where it had form, and it was even more exposed. A Soul Room represented a person's innermost self, and any damage to it would affect them. Alien souls in other people's Soul Rooms were equally afflicted by this openness – perhaps more so, since it was so easy to sever their link to the real world. Once that was done there were only two options she knew of open to floating souls – wander the earth as a ghost, or go on to the afterlife.

She was a stranger in a strange land. Anzu was fast learning where her ability to change the shape of her soul ended and Aramanth's ability to damage it (and her) began.

Unfortunately, Aramanth was playing with a full hand, while she had only a couple of cards.

Suddenly she really, really wished Yami was there and not on the wrong side of an impenetrable door. He knew all about this stuff. She'd just learned a few things and filled in the rest herself – probably getting things wrong in the process.

And wasn't that indicative of her whole life? She'd refused to see the dying throes of her parents' marriage, or how she was mistreating Yuugi by letting him hang out alone with his games when she was _supposed_ to be his best friend, but she'd convinced herself she knew exactly what was going on. Only irrefutable proof broke her from this narrow view: a car jam-packed with her father's things pulling out of the driveway; being replaced as best friend by Jounouchi; and now the knowledge that if she didn't save Yuugi they'd both die here.

"But -" Yuugi was cut off as Aramanth grabbed his legs.

"I am getting so – ngh!" Anzu beat hard and wrenched him free, climbing higher to get out of Aramanth's reach.

Too overloaded with her energy and Yuugi's freshly inside it, Aramanth moved like a giant slug. Whenever it did this before it could retire to a dark corner and digest in peace, burping nightmares and malevolent hallucinations, but not now. However, it wouldn't take long for it to recover, and it was just as tenacious as ever.

"So s-sick of … of …" It was no use. Astral or not, Anzu tumbled backwards, constricted with pain. She twisted around, wrapping her body and _all_ her limbs around Yuugi's to protect him as they hit the floor.

Her vision exploded with white feathers and black spots, as the impact jarred her wound. She yelped in pain.

_Not real, not real, _she told herself. _**Not**__ real. Not __**real**__…_

It felt real enough.

_I don't want to die_.

She'd had that thought so many times since all this craziness started – not just Aramanth, but right back to the day she and Honda stowed away on the ferry to Duellist Kingdom. She wasn't even old enough to vote. No way was it fair for her to die.

Anzu wasn't brave like her friends. They did what was right because it was right. She tried to fight for the same reasons, but it always came down to personal relationships for her. She was selfishly selfless.

Yuugi would throw himself in harm's way if it meant people he'd never met wouldn't suffer heartache. Jounouchi had a noble streak a mile wide, too, and Honda wasn't too far behind. None of them seemed to feel fear the way normal people did. They never backed away just because they were scared, the way Anzu had been tempted to do hundreds of times. It was all built in at bone level for them.

But Anzu? She waltzed into danger because her friends did; because if she didn't and they got hurt, then she'd never be able to forgive herself. She knew she wasn't useful enough for them to _need _her around the way they did Yami, or Yuugi, but _not _being by their sides was just ridiculous.

It terrified her if she thought about it too long.

She didn't want to die for people she'd never met. It was selfish, she'd long since acknowledged, but that was the way of it. As long as Yuugi and the others kept going, so would she, but she'd always be scared and always fight the impulse to just grab her loved ones and run.

And now … she was still scared, but at least she wasn't doing this for faceless masses. Yuugi was in her arms, living proof – though barely. Without him, she was just a teenage girl who read Cosmo and spent too much on her cell phone and did ballet. He made her special; he inspired her to do crazy, inexplicable things like keep moving after sustaining a stomach wound that was haemorrhaging blood all over the floor.

Miracles were possible on the astral plane, but only if you _wanted _them enough to _will _them into existence.

"Anzu!" Yuugi had caught sight of the wound. He sounded horrified. "Oh God, what've I done to you? You're hurt!"

"Idiot." She struggled to sit up, spotted Aramanth over his shoulder and rolled them over and over, away from it, so he was underneath her and nearer the door.

Her midriff squished against him. She felt queasy, like she might actually throw up. _Don'tfreakoutdon'tfreakoutdon'tfreakout…_

"It's my fault," Yuugi was saying.

"Listen to me," she bit out. "Yuugi, you're more powerful than you think. This is _your_ Soul Room. _You're _in charge here. Aramanth doesn't have the Millennium Key, it can't change that. This place is still yours! I may not know a lot about magic, but that much I _do_ know."

"I'm dreaming," Yuugi insisted. "I was tired. I must've fallen asleep, and this is another nightmare. That's why Aramanth is here – the nightmare was always set in darkness, with you getting hurt, and it lives in darkness because it's afraid of the light, so -"

"What?" Sudden realisation whooshed into Anzu like a hurricane decimating a small town. "That's it!"

She got no further, as Aramanth took advantage of her distraction to pluck both of them into the air.

"Falling for your own trick, Faithful One," it tutted. "Silly, foolish, unwise. You truly are no warrior maiden."

Anzu cried out as she was wrapped tight, arms against her sides. Though he was still fading in and out, his outline rippling and his colour like a bad TV reception, Yuugi called out to _her_.

That was just like him – about to become a human hamburger and more concerned about someone else. No wonder Aramanth had dubbed him Innocent One. Yuugi's purity remained untarnished despite repeated exposure to the worst evils on Earth.

The hurricane targeted the last building in that small town and obliterated it.

It was obvious to Anzu why Aramanth had targeted Yuugi – just like Jounouchi and Honda before her, she saw that Yuugi _felt _things more than most people, and he had a deep-seated love of his friends that could be twisted against him if they were hurt or threatened. Just as when he pushed Yami out of the Oricalchos's circle, or threw himself in front of a crooked hall monitor to protect his friends, you could count on Yuugi to care more for others than himself. His compassion was both his greatest strength and his biggest weakness.

Aramanth had made it a weakness already, but maybe shecould swing it back to being a strength with the right motivation. She knew Yuugi's buttons. She also knew how to push them, since she'd seen it done a thousand times – and done it herself before. If there weren't better things to concentrate on, she would've cringed at the memory.

Yuugi was staring at her. It was strained, but she smiled. "I'm sorry, Yuugi. I really am. This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me." Shoot. Was her voice really trembling that much?

Yuugi frowned. She could see the question in his face: _What are you planning?_

"It will hurt you both," Aramanth snapped. "You are each doomed to watch the other die. Painfully, excruciatingly, agonisingly. Understand that there is nothing you can do to save each other – nothing! Nor can Ancient One, Loyal One nor Reliable One assist. Think how Old One and Maternal One will grieve for you – will there be heart attacks? Strokes? Aneurysms? Will they pine away for their children, charges, precious someones?"

Anzu had a flash of her mom the day her dad left – the first time she ever saw her cry.

She hesitated, but at that moment Yuugi gave a violent shudder. The left side of his face faded out completely, in tandem with Aramanth groaning with pleasure. It wriggled, even more like a giant slug.

"Ooooohh … you are defiant, Faithful One, but Innocent One still regrets what he has brought you to. Such pure heartache you produce, Innocent One! Wonderful! How fortunate Faithful One chose to appear. Your love for her adds a certain extra zest to your sorrow!"

Anzu had scrunched up her eyes when it started talking, psyching herself to do this one thing.

"An… zu…"

"This is _your _Soul Room, Yuugi. You're in control here, not Aramanth." She twisted, hard.

On cue, Aramanth tightened its grip. Blood seeped into its shadows. Deeming it inedible and unimportant, since Anzu herself was still captive, Aramanth allowed it to fall to the floor.

The pain was intense, but she kept twisting and it kept squeezing. More blood fell into a growing puddle on the floor, like something in a horror movie or terrible nightmare. It dripped onto the smashed toys and games, staining them red.

"Ngh – remember the Oricalchos, Yuugi. R-remember … Aaaaahh!"

When she cried out, Yuugi's right shoulder vanished.

"You help me, Faithful One! Your cries feed his despair, and me!"

"You were the one who fought off the Oricalchos card – you were the only one it touched who wasn't corrupted. You're stronger than you think, especially here. Y-you're s-stronger than-" Something tore across her middle. "AAAAAHH!"

Aramanth shook her. She screamed, loud and long.

"Oh God … Miracles, Yuugi! If you want something enough … the astral …" Her head dropped for a moment. "OhGodthishurts. Yuugi! It's your Soul Room and you can make miracles here if you want them enough! We need a miracle, Yuugi!"

"Miracles are a fool's hope."

Anzu fixed it with a beady eye and used the bossy voice. "Y-you're just like every other villain. You spend so long talking you forget the important stuff."

"What?"

"Like how Yuugi and Yami balance each other. Yami _means _darkness. I-If you'd concentrated on him, maybe you would've won. But you didn't, and that was your biggest mistake." She narrowed her eyes. "You locked yourself in with the light, in his own Soul Room."

Aramanth had no eyes, but the air in the room felt the same as it would've had it suddenly opened them wide. Anzu took grim satisfaction in Aramanth realising the flaw in its plans when it was too late to do anything about them.

A faint glow lit the room. Aramanth backed away from it, but since the glow was Yuugi, this was harder than it sounds.

"No … more …" Slowly, Yuugi raised his head. His eyes burned like backlit amethysts. "I won't let you hurt her anymore. I won't let you hurt any of my friends. Not now, not _ever_."

"No!"

"I thought it was all my fault because I couldn't stop you. But I _can_. This is my Soul Room. I have my own magic here." There were tears in his eyes, but he smiled across at her. "I just forgot that for a while. Thanks, Anzu."

Aramanth shrieked. "Little witch! He was so close to the edge! he had stopped fighting! He would not have realised he could pull back if you had not planted the idea in his head!" It dropped Yuugi like a hot coal and lunged for the door out of the Soul Room.

It dropped Anzu, too. Though there was no wind, she opened her wings and hovered – the giant white wings she'd woken up with when she needed to get to Yuugi fast; which had alerted her to the sheer potential of the astral plane when your purpose and will to achieve it were great enough. She wasn't as experienced with souls and magic as Yuugi, but she'd made wings for herself and flown with them like she'd hatched from a shell. Just imagine what _Yuugi_ could do if he _thought_ about it…

"Keep the door shut!" she yelled. "Seal it in so it can't get away!"

Yuugi hung in the middle of the room, soft light suffusing him but growing stronger, brighter, _whiter _with every passing second.

Though Anzu was the one with the wings, it struck her that_ he_ looked more like an angel.

She held an arm over her bleeding stomach. Miracles. Hovering and yelling and _believing _with all her strength, even with a major gut wound. If she could fly, she could do anything. "Go, Yuugi!"

"Little witch!" Aramanth snapped out a slate-sharp tentacle.

She wheeled, but her injury made her clumsy and it hit her in the chest. She experienced another burning, sliding sensation that started at the front and exploded out her back.

"ANZU!"

And then there was only bright, white light.

* * *

With their injuries, it took all three of them to manhandle the door open when the flames disappeared. Each jostled to be first through, though Jounouchi hung back with his teeth fastened in his lip, waiting for the pain in his elbow to subside.

He heard Honda gasp. He didn't hear Yami at all. That freaked him more than if they'd run in and started yelling.

"What's going on?" He staggered into Yuugi's Soul Room. "What's -" His eyes widened. "Shit."

Yuugi and Anzu were on the floor. Anzu's entire midsection was a mess of blood and torn clothing. And there was a gaping hole in her chest. The wings Jounouchi had seen before stretched out behind and under her, crumpled and broken where she'd fallen on them.

Yuugi was crawling towards her, but he looked … translucent?

Yami rushed over to him. "Aibou, take my hand."

"It hit her, right before I got rid of it. I got rid of it, Yami. _Me_."

"I have always maintained that you are stronger than you give yourself credit for." Unbelievable. The guy's voice was steady as a rock. To listen to him, you'd never believe five seconds ago he was howling like a banshee with its fingers shut in a door. "But your energies have been almost completely expended. Take my hand, quickly, and I will give you some of mine."

"But Anzu is -"

"Take my hand!" Yami grabbed the hand Yuugi was reaching towards her and shut his eyes.

At once, a yellow corona surrounded them. Before Jounouchi and Honda's eyes, Yuugi's outline sharpened and his washed-out colours became vibrant. At the same time the Soul Room itself was repaired. Smashed toys mended themselves, dents in the walls popped out, and what looked like an explosion of black ash flaked off the brickwork. The ash agitated in the air and then vanished without trace, save for a small amount that went into an old fashioned egg timer. This plopped next to a Gameboy that stayed mysteriously broken.

Energy coursed from Yami into Yuugi, until Yami finally broke them apart. He panted with the vast amount of energy he had expended just to bring Yuugi's levels into the safe zone.

Honda was already at Anzu's side. "Dudes, she's fading too!"

Jounouchi could barely bring himself to look at her. Even Hirutani's most proudly mangled cat couldn't compare. He wanted to throw up – that was his _friend_. "Yami, juice her up too!"

"I … " Yami wheezed.

"He gave half his energy to me! If he gives any more he won't have enough left for himself." Yuugi held Anzu's hand, but her eyes were closed and she didn't respond when he called her name. She looked dead. "What do we do?"

"Move aside, aibou."

"You're only at half power, Yami. If you give up any more, you'll both…"

"I said move _aside_, aibou."

Jounouchi looked at Honda. Honda looked at Jounouchi.

"I guess we get to be useful after all."

"Yo, Yami. A little help here?"

Yami nodded, understanding without their needing to explain. It showed how low his own energies were (and by corollary, how low Yuugi's had been) that he didn't fight them. "Take her hands and concentrate. You have to give your energy freely. If you want it enough, it will happen."

If they wanted it enough?

Well _duh_.

Later, Jounouchi would compare the sensation to shaking out a foot full of pins and needles. The prickling gathered in his wrist, making him feel like he'd never be able to move it again.

He imagined what life would be like if Anzu died – they'd already had a taster, and he'd hated every second. They _needed _her. Their group just didn't work with oe missing, and besides which … he'd miss her. Even her habit of boxing his ears and forcing them to do dumb girly stuff.

On that note, the energy went out of him and into her. He gripped her hand tighter, willing her recovered, safe and back with them.

"_Are you … tagging our hands?"_

"_This is symbol of our friendship."_

"_This isn't permanent marker, is it?"_

Anzu's stomach and chest knit back together like a horror movie in reverse.

"_Trust Mr. Ishida to spoil the catfight action."_

"_I heard that." _

"_Dude! Is she related to bats or something?"_

Her paleness gave way to vibrancy, and her wings, rather than straighten out, crumbled into a mass of shining flecks that settled over everyone.

"_Why do you always hit me?"_

"_Because I care about you, doofus."_

"_Since when does caring leave bruises?"_

Memories slipped and slid around inside Jounouchi's head, like a toolbox emptying its contents over a moving truck.

"_Yow!"_

"_Oh, don't be such baby."_

"_That's not iodine, that's sulphuric acid!"_

"_Hey, __**you're**__ the one who had to save that cat from those thugs. Now hold still so I can fix you up."_

Honda sneezed. Jounouchi really wanted to scratch his neck, but he didn't. He concentrated on making Anzu whole and well again, like she was before all this started. He concentrated so hard that it came as a surprise when Yami pried his fingers loose.

"You need enough energy for yourself," Yami said, indicating to Jounouchi's bad arm.

"I've had worse."

Honda let go a minute later, but they all watched in horror as Anzu, now looking more Anzu-like, and less like an extra in a slasher flick, continued to fade away.

"What the -"

"Anzu!" Yuugi was distraught, until he realised Jounouchi and Honda were also fading. "What's going on?"

"They have to return to their own bodies," Yami explained. "They have to rest and recuperate, and they need their own Soul Rooms to do that."

"Hey, Yuugi, I got one question while I'm still here," Jounouchi interjected. "We won, right? Aramanth is history?"

Yuugi paused before answering. His eyes darted around his Soul Room, probing every corner, but it was lit far brighter than it ever had been before. There were also other new objects accompanying the toys scattered about: a duel disc, a small airfix pyramid and a photograph of the gang in a silver frame. They were all smiling and giving peace signs to the camera. "Yeah. It's gone. It's gone for good."

"Fantastic!" Honda punched the air. "Dude, you beat the monster and saved the day all by yourself!"

"No I didn't. It was all of you who gave me the strength. And it was Anzu who gave me the key. She figured out how to defeat Aramanth and forced my hand so I could actually do it." he lowered his voice. "She gave me someone to protect in a crisis."

"Then she'd better wake up so I can give her a high five." With that, Honda vanished.

Jounouchi flipped a salute with his good hand. "Catch you on the other side, guys."

He stayed just long enough, however, to see Yuugi bend close to Anzu, and to hear him say, "Please wake up. Please don't leave."

And Jounouchi knew Yuugi wasn't just talking about leaving the Soul Room.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *


	12. I Would Die for You

**

* * *

**

**11. I Would Die for You**

* * *

**I've never seen this kind of love;  
The kind that won't wash away  
And then leave you in the dark.  
I would die for you. **

-- From _I Would Die for You_ by Jann Arden

* * *

To say the atmosphere in the little room was tense would be a terrific understatement.

There were only two chairs. Sugoroku's feet hurt, but he'd given up his seat to Yuugi, and for once the little guy hadn't fought it. Meron Mazaki occupied the other. Each was drawn up to a side of the bed, prime position to keep vigil.

Against the wall wasn't exactly prime, but Jounouchi and Honda were trying to hide from the nurses. They'd been thrown out of the room twice already. "It's too crowded in here," one steel-haired candy-striper said disapprovingly, to which Jounouchi wanted to reply that it just proved Anzu had people who cared enough to _keep_ vigil.

Anzu.

She looked small and frail against the percale bedclothes – far smaller and frailer than in reality; fragile and easy to kill. You couldn't imagine those fine-boned hands balling into fists and giving the worst noogies he'd ever had. There were tubes up her nose, and a mask over her face that clouded when she breathed. There was an IV in the back of her hand and another in the crook of her opposite elbow. Everything above her hairline was white bandage.

She looked different. She never wore much make-up, but for the first time Jounouchi saw her minus even that. Without the artfully designed shadows she seemed younger, softer, less ready to take on the world. It made him wonder what other girls might look like bare-faced. It made him wonder what _Mai _would look like without her scarlet lipstick and severe eyeliner. The idea wasn't an unappealing one.

Outside, the sun had long since risen, turning from a scarlet smudge on the horizon to a brand new day. They should have been in school hours ago. Sugoroku had called on everyone's behalf, since Meron couldn't talk without dissolving into tears. He'd become the backbone of everything, asking the right questions, making sure they ate, taking control and gently directing them. Everyone was glad he was there because it meant they didn't have to be practical.

Being practical meant confronting reality, and reality wasn't too peachy right now.

"There was an extradural haematoma," Doctor Yamamoto, a balding man in his early fifties, had told Mrs. Mazaki, who passed it on to them. "Blood was collecting between the brain and skull wall, most likely as a result of the head trauma she suffered. We only discovered it once the operation had begun, but it was lucky we did. Untreated, it's unlikely she would've survived, and deterioration would have been fast. We relieved the pressure, and because we got to it so quickly there should be no lasting damage. Her physical prognosis is good."

"Her _physical_ prognosis?"

"Well, ah…" That was when he revealed that this pressure, coupled with technical problems created by the blackouts, may have affected the part of Anzu's brain that dealt with memory. "How far that goes, I couldn't say. She may have small gaps; she may have nothing wrong with her at all. Or she may have complete amnesia. Until she wakes up the jury's still out."

"And when did he say she'll wake up?" Yuugi had asked when they were told this.

But Meron just shook her head. "He didn't."

So that was that. They were playing a waiting game, and the prize would either be their friend back, or some stranger who didn't know who the hell they were.

Jounouchi's duelling relied heavily on taking gambles, but this time he would've preferred a straight answer.

"Are you family?" the nurse had asked when they were finally allowed in to see Anzu. They'd lied and said yes, of course.

Jounouchi reflected on that now. True, they weren't blood related – they didn't even _look_ alike – but this was the closest to a real family he'd ever had. He loved Shizuka with all his heart and soul, but she'd been out of his life for so long. She was blood, but Jounouchi had learned that family went beyond chromosomes. Sugoroku had been more of a father than his own; Honda, like a brother, had always had his back; Yuugi was, well, _Yuugi_; and Anzu … Anzu had been like his sister when Shizuka was off-radar.

They were all more than friends. Even Mrs. Mazaki's concern when he woke up after the last battle with Aramanth was more than his own mother would show. Jounouchi's mother had made clear a long time ago that she preferred her daughter, and looked on her son with polite acknowledgement, but little love.

He watched Anzu's mom now. Meron's blue eyes were fixed on her daughter, unblinking.

She'd been okay about the whole dead-spirit-stuck-in-a-puzzle thing, actually. At any rate, she hadn't run from the room screaming, or called the police, or, worse, tried to tell _their _parents what they'd been up to. "Yes, Mrs. Kawaii, he's not only got a history with gangs, he's also mixed up in the occult." He'd never see Shizuka again; and that was if he didn't end up investigated by the authorities, or in a nuthouse.

Meron wasn't the first adult in their lives to find out about Yami, but it was still nerve-wracking. She was an _important _adult. How she reacted mattered a lot. Plus, she was the first one not already connected with this world, the world of ancient civilisations and magic, to make contact with it.

Mrs. Mazaki worked at a youth art gallery. The closest she got to Egyptian sorcery was wannabe artists misusing hieroglyphs in their work, and she'd always dismissed Duel Monsters as a silly fad, like tamagotchi or snap bracelets. Now, suddenly she'd been forced to confront the truth, without warning or preparation for how _different_ it was than what she'd believed.

Jounouchi wondered what Sugoroku had said to her while they were in the Millennium Puzzle. Meron _had _called them idiots when they opened their eyes on the waiting room floor, but she'd done it without anger and through tears.

"You could have been killed – or worse!"

Honda was already awake then, so Jounouchi assumed he'd already filled them in on the "We won!" part of the equation. Sugoroku wore an expression that couldn't decide between elated or apprehensive.

Meron's face, on the other hand, was blank, but Jounouchi could tell lots of things were going on beneath the surface. It was a little like when Jaws disappeared beneath the rippling water, and you just knew that any minute –

"Thank you."

"Huh?"

"I … I couldn't do what you've done. And I understand you've done things like this before. So … thank you."

Jounouchi thought it unwise to tell her about the time he duelled so that if he lost Anzu would be killed under a heavy crate – especially when she opened her arms and wrapped him in a bear hug. A mother bear hug, technically, but Jounouchi was too busy reacting like his arm was still busted to make the connection. It was a surprise to find himself in one piece.

He'd tried to make conversation around 4am, when his eyes were closing and everyone was taking a bathroom break except him and Meron. Yuugi had to be pushed out the door, and he sprinted down the corridor like a kindergartener who'd held it too long.

"You're taking all this really well," Jounouchi said, without looking at her. "Most people wouldn't be able to cope with having their entire world view flipped on its side."

"I have other things to worry about right now."

Anzu's heart monitor beeped.

"I guess."

Meron looked at him then; not at him but really _at _him, as though reassessing everything she'd ever known or been told about him.

Jounouchi felt uncomfortable under her scrutiny, but when she spoke it wasn't him she spoke about.

"Besides, it wasn't my entire world view, was it? The sun still rises and sets, rain falls down, grass grows up, and supermarket wine still tastes like the feet that didn't crush it. Nothing has _changed_ from what it was, I just know more about it than before."

"I guess…" He'd never thought about it that way. In the beginning, he'd pulled more than one all-nighter just thinking about all the things he'd believed fairy stories that could, actually, come to get him. Maybe part of being an adult was being more accepting of things you couldn't change – except that if that was the case why were there so many wars?

"To be honest, I'm a little relieved."

Jounouchi boggled. "Say _what_?"

"I had all sorts of thoughts going through my head, of what Anzu had gotten up to. I felt terrible for thinking them, but as far as I could see she hadn't given me any other option but to suspect her of… well, to suspect her. I thought I didn't know her at all if she was capable of some of them. Gangs, drugs, sex – that's not the little girl I raised. I thought I'd failed as a mother.

"But even though I don't _understand_ all this hocus-pocus, I do understand that Anzu is involved because she loves her friends and knows the difference between right and wrong. _That _is my little girl." She sighed. "I just wish she'd done charity work if she really wanted to save the world." Her voice was taut, her face even more so. The skin around her eyes and mouth was stretched tighter than a drum. Yet she looked at him in that protective way adults do when they're trying to guard kids against unpleasant truths, like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.

It was the merest glance, but it hit Jounouchi like she'd fired a pistol straight into his heart at point blank range.

He saw her hands gripping the bar around Anzu's bed now and reflected on where Anzu had inherited her strength.

Yuugi sat with his arms dangling between his knees as if he were exhausted. He mumbled something and Meron flinched. "Sorry."

"No, it's all right. I'm just not used to ... it's all right, Yuugi."

"What?" Honda asked.

"Aramanth," Yuugi started, and Meron flinched again. He stopped.

"Sorry. You just say it so casually, like you're used to naming and shaming monsters and evils spirits." She blinked. "Which I suppose you are." She didn't know the whole story, not yet, but she knew enough. Her grip tightened. "Go on."

"When Aramanth," Yuugi said slowly, "came to me during the first blackout, it asked me whether Anzu would remember me. I thought it was just trying to stir up some extra angst, but it was telling the truth. I think that was the worst thing about that … that _creature_. It manipulated it, and twisted it, but Aramanth told the truth." He shook his head. "I should've realised -" He stopped, as though listening to a voice only he could hear.

Jounouchi opened his mouth but Meron beat him to it.

"And done what? Nothing except Doctor Yamamoto could've changed an extradural haematoma. You did far more than should've been possible, Yuugi. Be proud of that."

Jounouchi resisted the urge to shake his own head. That just wasn't the way Yuugi was wired.

Yuugi said nothing.

Jounouchi wondered what the little guy was thinking.

* * *

"_Aibou?"_ Yami wondered whether he'd been too harsh. Yuugi hadn't been trying to blame himself – for once – but hearing him once again set unrealistic expectations for himself had made Yami bark at him.

_I'm all right._

Relief blossomed. _"She will be fine," _Yami reassured.

_Maybe._

"_There is a power in belief, Yuugi. If you believe enough, you can make something so."_

_Maybe that works in the Soul Rooms, but things are different in the real world._

"_Not that different. Belief is still the most formidable magic there is."_

Yuugi didn't reply. Yami could sense whorls of regret and apprehension from him, curling away like threads from slowly unravelling cloth.

He reached out, soothing Yuugi as best he could, though his attempts at comfort felt clumsy. The memory of how he'd come apart in battle was too fresh. Once again, when faced with losing his Aibou, Yami had lost control. His own regret leaked out and mingled with Yuugi's.

He felt Yuugi's whole body stiffen, realised his carelessness, and hastily reeled in his own emotions – not fast enough, however.

_Yami?_

"_Yes, Yuugi?"_

_You didn't do anything wrong, you know._

"_Oh, Aibou" _Warmth suffused Yami. If history was to be believed, he had once been a ruthless pharaoh, king of a time when only the fittest, most hard-hearted people survived. Affection was not something that came naturally, but something approaching it had become so when confronted with the irresistible sincerity that was Yuugi Mutou.

_I mean it. Don't be hard on yourself just because your expectations of yourself are too high_.

The irony made Yami want to laugh. _"I am supposed to be the one who protects you, but once again I wasn't enough. Instead I was usurped by a human girl with no magic, and only the actions of Jounouchi and Honda stopped me from doing more damage than good. You will understand if I feel a little … feeble."_

_Feeble!? If there's one thing you're not, Yami, it's feeble._

"_Ineffectual, then. And I still do."_ He stared over Yuugi's shoulder at the figure in the bed.

Yuugi spiked all over with sorrow.

"_I have so much power, yet I can do nothing but __**wait**__. She did so much for you – for both of us – but I can do so little in return. Why does it always come down to this? Why are we so much at the mercy of fate?"_

_It's … I guess it's like Duel Monsters,_ Yuugi replied hesitantly, hunching his shoulders. _You can plan and practise and be the most talented duellist ever, but in the end you're only as good as your next card. The way to win is to turn a bad hand into a good one_.

Yami let him process that one alone. Aramanth had turned Yuugi's weaknesses against him. It had preyed on his martyrdom. Perhaps he'd come out of it with his own lessons under his belt. Yuugi was untainted, but he needed to work through these levels of self-awareness at his own pace. Trying to force him was like trying to force a cow through a mouse-hole.

_Do you … do you think she'll remember us if – __**when**__ she wakes up? _Yuugi corrected himself. It was a thin veneer.

What Yuugi felt for Anzu was impulsive, like the start of a smile, or the desire to be held. It had nothing to do with duty, responsibility, or the need to do what was right. It was a burst of life and possibility, in ways Yami was painfully aware he could never truly provide.

Someday he would have to leave his Aibou. He didn't know how or why, but it loomed inevitably before them. He wasn't meant to exist in this world this way. His existence was unnatural, and unnatural things had a habit of coming to their own conclusion. They all knew this, though they rarely spoke of it. Once he recovered his memories … Yami didn't know what might happen.

What he did know was that he'd come into this world, out of the Millennium Puzzle, because of a need to protect Yuugi. Long before he regained conscious thought, much less his own identity, he'd been driven by a base need to save Yuugi from harm. That feeling underpinned everything he did, from punishing school bullies to taking on ancient demon-gods. His greatest fear was losing Yuugi, or seeing him hurt, and second to that was not being around _to_ protect him.

But this ordeal … Yuugi had defeated Aramanth with his own special power. Yami was there to catch him afterwards, but so were his other friends. If nothing else, this whole saga had taught Yami that maybe, just maybe, Yuugi _would_ be all right on his own some day. He was strong, and had people who cared for him and were willing to do anything for him, and Yuugi cared for them in return. They believed in each other, and there was a lot of power in belief.

There was a lot potential in Yuugi's feelings now. His feelings for Anzu were natural, instinctive and pure, and for all they made Yami a little jealous, they also gave him comfort. Yuugi was growing up. He was learning to stand without a spirit to prop him up.

But Yami couldn't make promises like this, not even to spare Yuugi's feelings. _"I don't know, Aibou."_

The silence seemed to form a circle around them, as if nothing – no person, no sound – could get in.

And then … the heart monitor's beeping got faster.

Everyone's heads jerked up.

Yuugi's emotions thickened. Yami felt like he was breathing clumps of sentiment: alarm, joy, apprehension, panic. Only half were his own. They clogged his nose and mouth and reminded him that he didn't, actually, breathe.

They watched as Anzu's eyelids flickered. She took a deep breath of her own and slowly opened her eyes.

While they focussed, nobody could tell whether she recognised them or not. The air stank of anxiety.

"Anzu?" Meron Mazaki leaned forward, laying her hand over her daughter's. "Baby?"

Anzu looked at her blankly.

Yami felt Yuugi's heart drop.

And then … "Mom?" Her voice was croaky and muffled behind the mask, but the word was distinguishable. Anzu's eyes moved to look at everyone. Recognition was like a beacon in her wan face. "Hey, guys. Miss me?"

She knew them.

The combined force of their relieved sigh would have uprooted an entire forest.

Yuugi's heart soared, and so did Yami's unbeating one. Jounouchi and Honda high-fived and punched the air, attracting the attention of a passing nurse, while Sugoroku smiled a secret smile and Meron welled with fresh, happy tears.

"You're you," Yuugi kept whispering. "You're okay."

Anzu winked. It looked painful. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

"She shoots, she scores," Honda whooped. "Victory Dance!"

"You know it!" Jounouchi linked arms with him.

"What are you doing back in here?" The nurse demanded, stopping them before they could start. Probably a good thing with their long legs and all the expensive equipment. "I thought I already asked you boys to wait outside."

"Aw man. Busted." Jounouchi pulled a face. "Way to piss on our parade, lady."

"Well of all the ill-mannered - "

"Dude," Honda moaned, "don't you _have_ an internal monologue?"

The tension in the room dispersed, leaving the air clear. It felt like air after a storm, redolent of great energies just expended. Yami didn't need oxygen, but he felt like he could breathe easier now.

They had come through it – all of them. They were all alive, well and, most of all, reunited. Normalcy was already beginning to reassert itself, as Jounouchi and Honda complained every step out of the room and Anzu blearily rolled her eyes, while Yuugi looked at her like she'd hung the moon. And if the future wasn't destined to be perfect, at that moment nobody could have known it.

Outside, bright sunshine chased back the shadows.

* * *

**Last night I nearly died,  
But I woke up just in time. **-- From **_Last Night I Nearly Died _****by Duke Special. **

* * *

**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

_Without the artfully designed shadows she seemed younger, softer, less ready to take on the world._

-- Influenced by _Summon the Keeper_ by Tanya Huff.

_Reality wasn't too peachy right now. _

-- Boom boom. Peachshipping, and non-canon couples, get it?

* * *

****

****

****

****

**_Nearly done now!_**

* * *


	13. Epilogue

* * *

_**Epilogue: Little Wonders**_

* * *

**Here we are, safe at last; **

**We can breathe a sigh, **

**It seems the storm has passed. **

**Through it all no one knew **

**That all the tears in heaven **

**Would bring me back to you. **

**No one I know, imagined we would make it **

**But it only matters that we both believed. **

**Every time I felt near defeat **

**You were there for me, **

**On my side completely. **

**You give me strength, **

**You set me free, **

**It is because of you **

**I'm all that I can be. **

**When I'm with you, the world is ours to reach for, **

**Together there is nothing we can't do. **

**You and me, we're a miracle **

**Meant to be and nothing can change it; **

**Mountains move and oceans part **

**When they are standing in our way. **

**You and me, we're a miracle **

**Angels stand watching over us **

**And heaven shines upon us everyday. **

**The chance was so unlikely **

**That we would ever be, oh **

**Two stars upon the heavens **

**Destiny brought you to me **

-- From _We're a Miracle_ by Christina Aguilera.

* * *

Yuugi waited on the doorstep until he saw Anzu approach. He didn't try running towards her, since she'd only tell him off. She was proud and had things to prove, so he waited for her to reach the storefront and then fell into step beside her.

"Homework?"

He held up his bag. "Check."

She nodded. "That's every time this week. You're improving."

"Yami helped."

Anzu blinked. "Really?"

"Yeah. He's really good at math. I think it comes from totalling life-points in duels."

"Do you think he'd tutor me? I suck at math." She did, too. It was one of the few subjects where hard work couldn't make up for raw talent.

Yuugi watched his feet. He had new sneakers, which were bright white with blue streaks and squeaked when he walked. Instead of answering her question, he came straight out with it. "Um, Grandpa bought the tickets."

"Oh." Anzu's voice dropped. "I see. We're, uh, still allowed to come, right?"

"Of course!"

"Just making sure." She said nothing until they were at the end of the block. "I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. We all knew it would. It's just … hard. Is Yami …" she snagged on the word "… ready?"

"He might not _have_ to leave. We're just going to get his memories back so he can find out who he is."

"Yeah." Neither of them invested their words with much conviction. "Where is he now?"

"Sleeping. He stayed up pretending to watch repeats of Duel Monsters Eurotrix." Yuugi patted the Millennium Puzzle. "He watches me sleep. I think he's worried in case I have any more nightmares."

"Isn't that kind of creepy?"

"It suppose it should be, but it isn't. He's just worried another soul-sucking monster is going to invade my head, so he stays up all night making sure _I _sleep peacefully." Which was creepy in a totally different way, but he didn't say that part.

Anzu didn't raise her hand to touch the thin spots in her scalp. The days had stretched to weeks, and the weeks to months, though only a few. Still, time had passed, and her vanity counted every second.

She still wore a hat.

The doctors hadn't completely shaved her head, and her hair _was_ growing back. By the time they went to Egypt it would be pretty much back to normal. More than once she thanked her lucky stars for quick hair growth genes – though she still couldn't compete with him. One time, when they were twelve, he got sick of the bullying and she found him under the bleachers with a pair of scissors from the art department. It only took three weeks for new spikes to appear. By school picture day he was back to normal and she had a solemn promise he'd never do it again.

Today her hat looked like a tea cosy with bobbles on string that dangled either side of her face.

When they finally released her from hospital the doctors said she was going to be fine. She'd probably have some back problems in later life, but that was it. It was a miracle, everyone agreed – especially those who'd been there at the start. For Yuugi, each passing day was another tiny wonder that they were all still together.

Anzu feared her dreams of a dancing career were shattered, but apparently if she took it easy for a while there was no reason she couldn't eventually achieve her goals. Light exercise was good therapy, Doctor Yamamoto told her, as long as she didn't overdo it while she was healing.

"That means no noogies," Jounouchi had warned as he helped her into her mom's car the day she came home.

"So don't give me a reason to noogie you," Anzu had replied smartly, waving him away and climbing in by herself. She'd glared at the wheelchair used to transport her from Domino General to the parking lot – so hard Yuugi thought it might melt.

"Have you had anymore nightmares?" she asked now.

They'd figured out Yuugi's bad dreams and waking nightmares were Aramanth stirring up some foreboding to snack on. The creature's mind-games had gone deep. As a result, Yuugi was getting sick of being asked how he felt and how he'd slept. Yet the look on Anzu's face after his news made him forgive her – as always.

"No. I sleep like a baby."

"Babies cry a lot."

They were passing the mouth of an alley. They passed it every day, but they'd only ever stopped once. It was just like any other alley, which was … kind of anticlimactic, actually.

However, today Anzu glanced down it and her feet skittered to a halt, as though acting independent of her brain. Yuugi went only a step further before stopping, turning, watching her with concern. Her breathing had quickened and her grip on her bag was tight.

She made no move to enter. Neither did he.

Yuugi swallowed. "How's your mom?"

"Actually, she's really okay." Anzu sounded surprised to be saying it, though she didn't take her eyes off the alley. "Really. But I think she wants to adopt Jounouchi. She's invited him over for dinner practically every day since I got home, and I know he was eating at our house while I was in hospital because he always got a ride in our car for visiting hours. Omishi loves him, too. They talk shop all the time. He's even started talking about getting him an apprenticeship in his company when we graduate."

Yuugi knew a lot of this already, it was just something to say, but Jounouchi had failed to mention any apprenticeship. "That's great! You're always saying he doesn't have any career direction."

"I know, but he keeps eating my Hello Panda cookies and the bathroom smells like boy. Mom loves him, though. He's her pet project after she realised just how bad his dad is. She calls him Katsuya. _Katsuya!_" Anzu shook her head. "I never asked for a brother; and even if I had, I never would've asked for one like Jounouchi."

Yuugi couldn't help but smile. Mrs. Mazaki was proving a healthy addition to their secret club, even if membership was getting less exclusive by the day. It was nice having a new ally. She'd drilled them exhaustively about their adventures, and had more than a few words to say about the ridiculous risks they'd taken and the dangers they'd faced. Ultimately she'd accepted what they did, had done, perhaps a little of what they had yet to do.

Meron was impressed at their friendship with Seto Kaiba, and then less impressed when Sugoroku reluctantly revealed Kaiba as the cause of his heart attack. Yuugi found himself treated like glass until Meron got used to knowing Yami was only ever a heartbeat away, which granted him special privilege to watch when she made a formal apology to Honda for accusing him of sleeping with her daughter. Of the three of them, he wasn't sure who blushed more.

As soon as Anzu was up to it, _she_ found herself stemming a lava flow of maternal shock, tears and cross-questioning that she'd kept such enormous secrets for so long. Like her daughter, Meron Mazaki had a temper that, as Jounouchi knowledgeably described it, caught faster than a lit match in a fart. Accusations were thrown. Severe words became soft, and soft words turned harsh under fluorescent lighting. Promises were made. So were threats. Expectations shattered and rearranged themselves in a squall of oestrogen.

Even the nurses gave the room a wide berth while that was going on. The boys and Sugoroku waited until the door opened and a tearstained duo allowed them back in, and asked no questions because they weren't that stupid. Pissing off one Mazaki woman was risky. Pissing off two was suicidal.

Meron had made noises when Yuugi first mooted a trip to Egypt and Anzu asked to go. Anzu was too fragile, it was too soon after the operation, it was too dangerous. She conveniently forgot, and had to be reminded, that Mazaki women had a way of surviving tragedy when others needed them. She'd proved that years ago when Anzu's father left and she dedicated herself to raising their little girl to be a strong young woman. Now that strong young woman was needed in the same way by someone else.

Since she'd spent time reacquainting herself with her daughter's friends – and just plain getting to know Yami – while Anzu was trapped in Domino General, she'd grown to understand the potent nature of their friendship. Knowing that, she couldn't keep Anzu away when there was a very real chance this might be Yami's final goodbye.

Yuugi and Anzu still didn't move away from the alley.

"That was really scary," Anzu said quietly. She didn't need to say what. They rarely talked about the might-have-beens. Everything she didn't say was wrapped up in that sentence. "Yuugi?"

"Yes?"

The pause lingered on the edge of being too long, preparing the way for the presentation of each separate syllable, but none appeared.

Yuugi risked a glance and realised with alarm that Anzu's eyes glittered with unshed tears. Her colour wasn't good. Her face was the grey of recycled cardboard. Instantly he was taken back to his bedside vigil and his stomach swirled with dread.

"Anzu?"

"I'm all right. It's just … everything seems different, but not different at all. We fought so hard so we could all stay together when Aramanth tried to pull us apart, and now it looks like we're going to break apart anyway." She let out a strange, piercing laugh – a laugh that was so bitter, so proud, so full of smouldering, contradictory impulses that Yuugi scarcely knew what to make of it.

It sounded like the Last Laugh.

"This isn't the same," he said quietly. The pain of separation bit into him, too. Yami gone … he hated the idea, but more than that, he knew it would be cruel to keep Yami's true identity from him just because they liked having him around – just because _he _liked having Yami around.

Ultimately, the decision was Yami's. He'd abandoned the quest for his memories after Dartz, too afraid of leaving Yuugi alone to address his own need for identity. However, something had clicked with Yami after the ordeal with Aramanth that made him feel able to finally make that decision, and go looking for his past.

"I know. It's even worse."

"It's hard," Yuugi admitted, but she cut him off.

"No, it's painful. We know what we've got to do and we know_ why_ it's got to be done – otherwise we wouldn't be in so much pain." Anzu sniffed. "Who knew caring about someone meant them having so many more ways to hurt you?" She mumbled it, but Yuugi heard all the same.

How carelessly truthful.

"I know," he said, looking up at her.

It was a moment made for confessions.

In the distance they heard the school bell ring.

"Crap!" Anzu swore, shouldering her schoolbag and scrubbing at her eyes. "We're late!"

The moment broke like dropped china.

Yuugi readjusted his own bag and ran after her. "Wait! Doctor Yamamoto said you're only supposed to take _light_ exercise!"

The bobbles on either side of Anzu's face bounced. "Tell that to Mr. Ishida if we're late. We'll be cleaning every chalkboard in the school, brain surgery or no brain surgery."

Yuugi thought about this. Then he squinted. "Isn't that Jounouchi and Honda?"

Indeed, two figures were running like Olympic sprinters towards the school gate from the opposite direction. Jounouchi had no school bag – big surprise – and Honda still had a triangle of toast sticking out of his mouth. Their arms pumped and he could imagine the words furiously leaving Jounouchi's mouth.

"They're late too. What a surprise. We can have detention together." Anzu frowned. "Me in detention and Jounouchi making career plans? Wake Yami, it's a sign of the apocalypse."

Being late for school. Handing in homework. The squeak of new sneakers. It was all so ordinary, and yet … so completely wonderful. So many times Yuugi had thought things like this would never happen again. Not for him, nor his friends. So many times he'd thought _This is it_ and prepared himself for the final cut. He was Yuugi Mutou, the kid who'd helped save the world – multiple times – but _his_ world hinged on little wonders like this. His simple, wonderful little life, which was everything he'd ever wanted – and more.

He felt Yami stir.

"_You're going to be late, Aibou."_

The laugh Yuugi loosed wasn't bitter, but impulsive, as he raced towards another gloriously mundane day with _all_ his friends at his side.

"Hey, Anzu, wait for me!"

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**Our lives are made  
In these small hours;  
These little wonders,  
These twists and turns of fate.  
Time falls away,  
But these small hours,  
These small hours still remain.**

-- From _Little Wonders_ by Rob Thomas.

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_**Fin.**_

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**Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs**

"_No, it's painful. We know what we've got to do and we know why it's got to be done – otherwise we wouldn't be in so much pain."_

-- From the first season finale of _Grey's Anatomy_. Still the best season, in my humble opinion.

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**A/N:** Well that's it. I've always wanted to write a fic like this – a monster of the week one that could slot into continuity and still be believable. Maybe I was successful, maybe I wasn't, but I still had a blast writing it and I take great pride in the fact that this is one fic I saw right through to the end. I actually finished a multi-chapter fanfic! And I don't hate it!

Anzu's right, the apocalypse is near.

I hope everyone reading this had as much fun as me. To all reviewers, anonymous readers and people who wandered in off the street. I salute you for accompanying me through my fannish indulgences and ask, _what the hell are you still doing here when there's so much brilliant fic by other writers waiting for you?_

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